www.metalog.org/print/Metagosp.

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Metalogos:
The Gospels of Thomas & Philip & Truth
Ecumenical Coptic Project
t.mn-t.son77m-.pe.xristos
www.metalog.org
Printed IV.92, Uploaded I.98, Revised IX.10

Wonder at what is present!The Traditions of the Apostle Matthias

Introduction

In December of 1945 two Muslim Egyptian farmers, Muhammad Al al-Sammn and his brother
Khalfah Al, found over 1100 pages of ancient papyrus manuscripts buried by the east bluff of the
upper Nile valley. The texts were translations from Greek originals into Coptic, the Hellenistic stage of
the ancient Hamitic language of the Pharaohs (Gen 10:6). This dialect evolved after the invasion of
Alexander the Great in 332 BC, and was subsequently replaced by Arabic as the Egyptian vernacular
following the Muslim conquest of 640 AD. Coptic was thus the tongue of the primitive Egyptian Church,
and remains its liturgical language unto the present day.
The site of this discovery, across the river from the modern town of Nag Hammadi, was already
famous as the location called in antiquity (Goose-Pasture), where in 320 AD Saint
Pachomius founded the earliest Christian monastery. Less than a half-century later in 367, the local
monks copied some 45 diverse religious and philosophical writingsincluding the Gospels of Thomas,
Philip and Truth, as well as part of Platos Republic (588A-589B)into a dozen leather-bound codices.
This entire library was carefully sealed in an urn and hidden nearby among the rocks, where it remained
undetected for almost 1600 years. These papyri, first seen by scholars in March of 1946 (Jacques
Schwarz & Charles Kuentz, Codex II, in a Cairo antiquities shop), have since 1952 been preserved in the
Coptic Museum of Old Cairo. The earliest photographic edition of the manuscript of the preeminently
important Codex II was edited by Dr Pahor Labib (Cairo: Government Antiquities Dept, 1956).
The author of the Gospel of Thomas is recorded as Thomas the Apostle, one of the Twelve. The text
is a collection of over one hundred sayings and short dialogues of the Savior, without any connecting
narrative. A few Christian authors in antiquity quoted one or another of its logia as Scripturefor
example Sayings 2/22/27/37 by Clement of Alexandria (circa 150-211 AD) in his Stromata (Patches)
but without explicit attribution to Thomas. Then 100 years ago at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt, there were
discovered a few fragments of what we now know to be a prior Greek version of Thomas, datable by
paleography as follows: PapOx 1, Th 26-33/77, 200 AD; PapOx 6541, Th Prolog/7, 250 AD; PapOx 655,
Th 36-39, 250 AD (see Biblio. 11, below). The more recent discovery of the Sahidic (S) Coptic version of
Thomas has finally made this Gospel available in its entirety. Yet further evidence, such as the
asyndeton in logion 6, reveals an underlying Semitic source document (see Guillamont, Recent Scho-
larly Comments). As indicated in the press release reprinted below, almost all biblical scholars who have
been studying this document since its first publication have now concluded that Thomas should be
1
On display in the John Ritblat Gallery of the new British Library at St Pancras, London.

1
accepted as an authentic fifth Gospel, of an authority parallel to John and the Synoptics. It is particularly
to be noted that several of the logia in Thomas (12/24/28/37) are evidently post-resurrection sayings.
The Gospel of Philipas can be inferred from its entries 51/82/98/101/137was composed at least
in part after 70 AD by Philip called the Evangelist (not the Apostle), who appears in the Book of Acts at
6:1-6/8:4-40/21:8-14. There is no known previous reference to or citation of this complex scripture, which
is a Sahidic translation of an elegant series of reflections on the Abrahamic tradition, on Israel and the
(incarnate) Messiah, whilst elaborating a metaphysic of Spiritual Idealism.
The Gospel of Truth was composed in about 150 AD by Valentine, the famous saint of Alexandria
(born ca 100 AD). A continuous interwoven meditation on the Logos, it was scarcely mentioned in anti-
quityand until its discovery at Nag Hammadi (in the Subakhmimic dialect, A), not even a phrase
from this noble composition was known to have survived. (A preliminary version of another extraor-
dinary text from the Nag Hammadi library, which may also be by Valentine: www.metalog.org/files/
supremacy.html.)
In the early years following the discovery of these documents, and before they could be given
sufficiently careful scrutiny by scholars, it was commonplace for them collectively to be labeled
gnostic (see e.g. Grant & Freedman [1960], in Recent Scholarly Comments). This has always been a
generic term for the Mediterranean mixture of anti-sensory mystery cults of the early centuries AD.
Gnosticismwhether oriental, platonic, mystery-religion or theosophicalby definition considers the
perceptible universe, including our own incarnate lives as well as all human history, Biblical or
otherwise, to be inherently illusory and/or malignant. On the other hand, the unequivocal view in the
Old Testament and the canonical Gospels is that this universe is neither unreal nor evil, but rather
divinely created and good: so, among countless examples, Gen 1:31 (everything that He had made ...
was very good) and Lk 24:39 (flesh and bones as ... I have). It is most unfortunate that all of the
diverse Nag Hammadi writings have been so commonly described as gnostic documents. Careful inves-
tigation shows quite clearly that neither Thomas nor Philip nor the Gospel of Truth is at all gnostic in
content, as they each explicitly affirm the sacred reality of human incarnation in its historic ambiance
(see Comm. 1, below).
The New Testament canons of the Western (Catholic/Protestant), Eastern Orthodox, Coptic, Arme-
nian, Ethiopian and Syrian/Nestorian Churches all differ significantly from one anotherand even these
were under dispute within the various branches of Christianity until many centuries AD; previously there
were only widely diverse opinions recorded by various individuals well after the Apostolic era,
regarding not only todays commonly accepted works but also such writings as the Epistle of Barnabas,
the Shepherd of Hermas, the Gospel of the Egyptians, the Gospel of the Hebrews (in which Christ calls
the Sacred Spirit his Mother), the Traditions of Matthias, the Apocalypse of Peter, the Didakh, and the
Acts of Paul. Thus the Codex Sinaiticus of the mid- 4th century includes both Barnabas and the Shepherd
of Hermas, while the Codex Alexandrinus of the early 5th century contains I and II Clement as well as
the Psalms of Solomon. There was no church council regarding the NT canon until the Synod of
Laodicea (363 AD), which indeed rejected Johns Apocalypse or Book of Revelation. Twelve centuries
later (!), the Western Canon was finally settled by the Council of Trent (1546 AD), which designated the
present 27-book listing as an article of Roman Catholic faith (although episcopal councils have never
claimed to be infallible; the vote at Trent was 24 to 15, with 16 abstentions)and which the various
Protestant Churches subsequently accepted. The sundry Eastern Churches have equally complex records
on establishing their respective NT canons: thus, the Armenian canon includes a Pauline III Corinthians;
the Coptic NT contains I+II Clement; the Syrian/Nestorian Peshitta excludes II+III John, Jude, and Rev/
Ap; and the Ethiopian Bible adds books called the Snodos, the Epistle of Peter to Clement, the Book of
the Covenant, and the Didascalia. (see Biblio. 32)
Notably, however, the Gospels of Thomas, Philip and Truth were evidently not known to any of
those traditions at the time of their attempts at establishing a NT canon, never being so much as men-
tioned in their protracted deliberationsand hence were never even under consideration for inclusion in

2
their respective listings. In any case, the concept of a canon was certainly never intended to exclude the
possible inspiration of any subsequent textual discoveries or isolated agrapha (Lk 1:1, Jn 21:25).
Precisely what transpired during the first 3 centuries AD, prior to the earliest ecclesiastical
attempts at forming a canon, is notoriously obscure, as the original Gospel Messianics were eventually
supplanted by the Pauline Christians (Ac 11:25-26). Thus the Epistle of Barnabas (late first century)
remains unacquainted with the historical Gospels, whereas Justin Martyr (mid-second century) shows
no awareness of Pauls writingsindicating an ongoing schism between the Petrine and the Pauline
traditions. Clement of Alexandria and Irenaeus of Lyon, at the end of the second century, are the first
authors explicitly to quote from both the Gospels and from Paul. I have attempted to analyze the basis
of this rift in The Paul Paradox, Comm. 5. Essential reading on that formative period is Walter Bauers
pioneering study, Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity (1934; http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/humm/
Resources/Bauer).
The subsequent divisions within Pauline Christianity may be summarized as follows. The Oriental
Orthodox Patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem, as well as many others, refused to accept the
new doctrine of Christs two natures (human and divine), decreed by the Council of Chalcedon in 451
AD; thereupon the Oriental Orthodox Churches separated from the Eastern Orthodox and the Roman
Catholic Churches. Several centuries later, in 1054 AD, the latter two in turn separated from one another,
in the filioque clause schism (see Comm. 2, below). Then, starting in the early XVI century, the Pro-
testant Churches began subdividing off from the Roman Catholic hierarchy. The Oriental Orthodox
Churches today include the Coptic, the Armenian, the Syriac, the Ethiopian, the Eritrean, and the
Thomasite Malankara of India. They are referred to by outsiders as monophysite (single nature);
however, they themselves describe their Christology as miaphysite (unified nature).
In his prologue, Joshua ben Sirach ( II-century BC) wrote an appropriate slogan for any comparable
work of translation: What was originally expressed in Hebrew does not have exactly the same meaning
when translated into another language. With such admonition in mind, I have prepared the following
versions as literally and as lyrically as I could. Historically they have passed from Aramaic (in the case
of Thomas) thru Greek (Philip and Truth) to Coptic and only then to English! The complex process of
interpreting such ancient documents has been well summarized by John R. Donahue SJ:
The English term text is from the Latin texere, meaning to weave. A text is an interwoven net-
work of meanings that gives rise to the hermeneutical circle; that is, the meaning of a text must be
determined as a whole, but study of the individual parts is necessary to arrive at the meaning of the
whole. Reading texts involves an expanding contextual analysis, in which one studies the imme-
diate context of a passage, what follows or precedes its immediate context, and the larger context of
the document as a whole.1
and indeed, regarding the Coptic Gospels, this larger context must include the canonical scriptures
themselves (see the innumerable parallels to both the OT and NT noted thruout).
Any grammatical irregularities encountered in the translations are in the Coptic text itself (e.g. the
verb tenses in Th 64). Plausible textual reconstructions are in [brackets], while editorial additions are
in (parentheses). [...] indicates places where it is not possible to interpolate the deterioration of the
papyrus manuscript. The Greek Oxyrhynchus variants to Thomas are within {braces}. You and its
cognates are plural, thou and its cognates represent the singular (but generally with the modern verb-
form, as e.g. in Th 26a justifiable hybrid, I believe). Notes at the end of each logion are indicated by
superscript numbers, those at the end of the current text with a circle. The scriptural cross-references
listed are essential to an understanding of the saying in its biblical context, and the reader is urged to
refer to them in every case; explicit parallels to Thomas in the Synoptics are separately marked with an
equal sign=, to spare the reader looking up what is already well-known. In antiquity, of course, there

1
Guidelines for Reading and Interpretation, The New Interpreters Study Bible (Nashville: Abingdon, 2003).

3
were no lower-case letters, and thus in order to represent the Hebrew, Greek and Coptic scripts I have
not here used their subsequent cursive letters but rather their classic forms, which are easier for the non-
scholar to read. In turn, in translating such ancient texts to modern languages, it is virtually impossible
to capitalize in a consistent and adequate manner; I ask the readers indulgence in this regard. Thruout,
P... represents paragraph numbers in Plumleys Grammar, C... are page numbers in Crums Dic-
tionary (Biblio. 5+6).
In place of the Greek form, Jesus ( ), I have used the original Aramaic: Yeshua ((w#y),
meaning Yahweh Savior, i.e. He-Is Savior (Ph 20a). Hyphenated I-Am represents the divine self-
naming from Ex 3:14: Hebrew hyh) (ahyh), Greek , Coptic anok pe (Th 13; P306).
Lastly, I have appended five essays as commentary: ( 1) Are the Coptic Gospels Gnostic?, a formal
demonstration that they cannot be so categorized; (2) The Maternal Spirit, re the feminine gender in
the Semitic languages of #dqh xwr [rakh ha-qdesh, Spirit the-Holy]; (3) Theogenesis, on the inti-
mation in Philip that the original human transgression consisted in claiming to produce children, rather
than accepting them as begotten by God alone; ( 4) Angel, Image and Symbol, regarding these three
primary concepts as found in the new scriptures, together with their underlying metaphysical framework
of an apparent Spiritual Idealism; and (5) The Paul Paradox, a philosophical analysis of the evident
discrepancies between the Gospels and the theology of Saul of Tarsus, together with a survey of similar
critiques by many preeminent individuals across the centuries.
In searching out the sense of these new writings, I have had the benefit of extended conversations
across the years with many friends and colleagues, especially Robert Schapiro, Christina Wesson,
Crosby Brown, Luz Garca and Pedro Chamizo. My long-term thanks are also due to two of my under-
graduate instructors: the poet Robert Frost, for his advice to partake only in what is worthy of ones
time; and Prof William E. Kennick, for his example of the highest standards in philosophical analysis.
To Bertrand Russell, while I was studying in London and had the opportunity to demonstrate with him
in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, I am indebted for his fearless example in confronting the
Establishmentwhether political, military or religiousfor the sake of the truth. Much of the present
edition was prepared while I was a guest of numerous universities both state and private, as well as
seminaries and religious communities both Catholic and Protestant, thruout Latin America; and also of
the faculties of philosophy, of orthodox theology and of informatics at the University of Athensfor
their fraternal hospitality I am profoundly grateful. Internet technical advice has been kindly provided by
Ioannis Georgiadis of the Athens University Computer Center.
The canonical Gospels must be the paradigm in assessing any newly-discovered Gospel. That is to
say, our criteria for evaluating such a text must be both its internal consistency with, and its external
provenance relative to, the four texts which provide the ostensive definition 1 of the very term Gospel to
begin with. So: are Thomas, Philip and Valentine theologically harmonious with the Synoptics and
John? Do they all come from the same general historic context and archaeological ambiance in anti-
quity? Are the new texts, upon analysis, both conceptually and empirically coherent with the four
canonical Gospels? Do they, all in all, seem to be of the same Logos? Sufficiently careful scrutiny,
I have concluded, yields an affirmative answer to all of these questions. Thus the intent of this present
edition, together with the online Coptic texts, dictionary and grammar, is to provide the reader with the
resources to carry out a thorough assessment of these extraordinary scriptures for him/herself.
It has often been suggested that these new writings are basically concoctions produced by a series
of unknown somebodies long after the events they purport to concern. However, the simplest explana-
tion here (by William of Ockhams famous Principle of Economy: Entities should not be multiplied
unnecessarily) is not lengthy oral tradition followed by numerous written redactions; the simplest
explanation is rather that these three scriptures were composed by the Apostle Thomas, Philip the
Evangelist and Valentine of Alexandria, and come to us basically intact and well translated from the

1
Ostensive definition: defining a term by indicating an exemplary or paradigmatic referent.

4
original languages into Coptic. There is absolutely no reason to propose a more complex hypothesis
here. (In any event, the sum total of hypothetical alterations to the original message would be about the
same as holding a single hair before the disk of the sun.) And so, following the example of Aristotles
Metaphysics (as later titled by Andronicus of Rhodes), I have called this collection of new scriptures
Metalogosthat is, More Logos.
p.ixqus 5.euxaristou.k!
Thomas Paterson Brown, BA (Amherst), PhD (London)
Cusco, Peru, Easter Week 2010
edit@metalog.org

Bibliography
1. The hypertext version of this work, plus the parallel Spanish and Modern Greek editions, are at www.
metalog.org.
2. Photographic editions of the complete papyrus manuscripts have been published by UNESCO in conjunc-
tion with the Egyptian Government, under the editorship of James M. Robinson et alia: The Facsimile Edition of
the Nag Hammadi Codices (Codex I & Codex II), Leiden: E.J. Brill (www.brill.nl), 1977 & 1974; The Gospel of
Truth is in Codex I, Thomas (scan online: www.metalog.org/files/th_scan.html) and Philip are in Codex II.
3. There is a complete bibliography regarding the new Coptic texts: Nag Hammadi Bibliography 1970-1994,
Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1997; also listed annually 1970 ff. in the journal Novum Testamentum (both by David Scholer);
as of 2004, this listing had reached 10626 separate titles! See the immense online Gospel of Thomas Bibliograpy:
www.agraphos.com/thomas/bibliography/ (by Sytze van der Laan).
4. The entire collection of some 45 titles (including a wide diversity of period religious writings) is available
in a popularized edition: The Nag Hammadi Library in English (edited by James M. Robinson & Marvin Meyer),
San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1977, 1988 (with Richard Smith).
5. For the grammatical structure of the Coptic language, I have used the comprehensive Introductory Coptic
Grammar (by John Martin Plumley, subsequently Professor of Egyptology at the University of Cambridge), Lon-
don: Home & Van Thal, 1948; photocopied in 1987 by Robert Michael Schapiro at the Mt Scopus Library of the
Hebrew University, Jerusalem; this authoritative but rare mimeographed sourcebook of the Sahidic dialect is now
on-line in both HTML and PDF formats: www.metalog.org/files/plum.html.
6. The indispensable standard lexicon is: A Coptic Dictionary (by Walter Ewing Crum), Oxford: The Uni-
versity Press, 1939, reprinted 2000 by Sandpiper Books Ltd, London (www.sandpiper.co.uk) & Powells Books,
Chicago (www.powells.com); online in gif and djvu formats: www.metalog.org/files/crum.html; a searchable
version is included in #39; note that this monumental work is alphabetized primarily by consonants and only
secondarily by vowels; Coptic is a partly agglutinative language, utilizing a complex system of morphological and
syntactical prefixes and suffixes which must be subtracted in order to identify the root term; for example
tn-nan-nhueboltn-.na.n-nhu ebol (P199a, C219b, C034a: we.shall.come forth).
7. For my translation of Thomas, I have utilized the unsurpassed first edition of the Coptic with line-by-line
English, French, German and Dutch translations, as published in: The Gospel according to Thomas (edited by
Antoine Guillaumont, Henri-Charles Puech, Gilles Quispel, Walter Till & Yassah Abd al-Masih), Leiden: E.J.
Brill; New York: Harper & Brothers; London: Collins, 1959; available online: www.metalog.org/files/coptic_
thomas.html.
8. The Gospel of Thomas website, with many links: www.epix.net/~miser17/Thomas.html; maintained by
Stevan Davies.
9. There is now a most useful interlinear Coptic/English edition of Thomas: www.metalog.org/files/grondin.
html (edited by Michael Grondin, who also maintains the scholarly online gThomas eGroup: http://groups.yahoo.
com/group/gthomas).
10. The current standard popular edition of Thomas, with Coptic text, English translation and notes: The
Gospel of Thomas (edited and translated by Marvin Meyer), San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1992.
11. The prior Greek fragments of Thomas, which vary significantly from the Coptic version: New Sayings of
Jesus and Fragment of a Lost Gospel from Oxyrhynchus (edited by Bernard Grenfell, Lucy Drexel & Arthur
Hunt), Oxford University Press, London: Henry Frowde, 1904; available online at Andrew Bernhards important

5
Gospel of Thomas Resource Center: www.gospels.net/thomas/.
12. A well-illustrated and most informative historical account and analysis: The Gospel of Thomas: Does
It Contain Authentic Sayings of Jesus? (by Helmut Koester & Stephen Patterson; www.easycart.net/ecarts/
bib-arch/BR_Back_Issues_1990.html), Bible Review, IV.1990.
13. The standard scholarly edition of Thomas and Philip, with ancillary materials, critical Coptic text,
English translation and fully indexed Coptic and Greek glossaries: Nag Hammadi Codex II (volume I, edited by
Bentley Layton), Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1989.
14. The primary Spanish edition of Thomas and Philip, translated directly from the Coptic with introductory
material, extensive bibliographies and annotations: Los Evangelios Apcrifos (edited and translated by Aurelio de
Santos Otero), Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 7 edicin 1991.
15. I have based my translation of Philip on the Coptic text, amply annotated with fully indexed glossaries:
Das Evangelium nach Philippos (edited and translated by Walter Till), Berlin: Walter De Gruyter (www.
degruyter.de), 1963; online: www.metalog.org/files/till.html; author of the sunccinct but definitive Koptische
Dialektgrammatik (1994), Till has done us the inestimable service of parsing the Coptic text, so that e.g. the
continuous manuscript line 100.25 (from logion 7) netsite6n-tprw4auws66m-p4wm is deciphered as net.
site 6n- t.prw 4a.u.ws6 6m- p.4wm, and is thus readily interpreted as those-who.sow in the.winter habitually.
they.reap in the.summer.
16. A superlative English edition of the Gospel of Truth, extensively annotated with an expansive intro-
ductory essay: The Gospel of Truth, A Valentinian Meditation on the Gospel (edited and translated by Kendrick
Grobel), New York: Abingdon Press; London: Black, 1960; online: www.metalog.org/files/grobel1.html; see
Recent Scholarly Comments, below.
17. I based my translation of the Gospel of Truth on the standard scholarly edition, with introduction, Coptic
text, English translation, copious notes and fully-indexed glossaries: Nag Hammadi Codex I (two volumes, edited
by Harold W. Attridge), Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1985; Coptic text online: www.metalog.org/files/truth.html.
18. NB The best Greek/English interlinear and lexicon of the New Testament canon, with super-linear
textual variants and sub-linear ultraliteral translation: Concordant Greek Text and The Greek Elements (both
edited by Adolph Ernst Knoch), Santa Clarita CA 91350 USA: Concordant Publishing Concern (www.concor
dant.org), 4th edition 1975 (sample page: www.metalog.org/files/knoch.gif).
19. A work of extraordinary breadth and insight regarding the basic parameters of Biblical metaphysics, as
contrasted with Greek and Western: Claude Tresmontant, A Study of Hebrew Thought, New York, Tournai, Paris,
Rome: Desclee Company, 1960; see Angel, Image and Symbol, Comm. 4.
20. The History of the Coptic Language (by Hany N. Takla): www.metalog.org/files/coptic.html.
21. Various editions of the Bible: www.biblegateway.com; see also #24.
22. The magisterial Liddell-Scott-Jones-McKenzie Greek Lexicon: www.perseus.tufts.edu; included in #29
and #39 (searchable).
23. Essential in New Testament studies is the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece, Stuttgart: Deutsche
Bibelgesellschaft, 1979 ff.; www.ubs-translations.org; included in #29.
24. An excellent Spanish edition of the Bible, with copious notes, indexes, tables, maps and references
(which, however, unfortunately continues the use of the hybrid misnomer Jehov in place of the correct
Yahweh): Santa Biblia Reina-Valera (Edicin de Estudio), Sociedades Bblicas Unidas, 1995 (www.bibles.
com/products/ABS_NEW/105970.aspx).
25. A leading example of the increasing number of theological resources and links on the Net: The New
Testament Gateway, www.ntgateway.com (maintained by Mark Goodacre).
26. I have added a number of parallels to the splendid Odes of St Solomon, a first-century Messianic text in
Old Syriac discovered in 1909; online: www.earlychristianwritings.com/odes.html (translated by James Charles-
worth).
27. The Shroud of Turin website, with extensive historical and scientific information plus many detailed
images of the cloth (maintained by Barrie Schwortz): www.shroud.com; an online, computer-clarified ultraviolet
image of the face on the Shroud, together with a summary of the ongoing scientific study of the relic and the latest
Carbon-14 test results: www.metalog.org/files/shroud1.html.
28. A most useful world-wide listing of university internet pages: www.braintrack.com.
29. An invaluable collection of the most important editions of the Biblical scriptures in the original Hebrew,
Aramaic or Greek, fully interlinked with translations into 25 modern languages plus many of the foremost refer-
ence works, all integrated into advanced programs for textual research, is available on a CD or DVD set from:

6
www.bibleworks.com; NB the older but perfectly adequate edition BibleWorks 5 is available for only $10 plus
postage.
30. The links in this edition are checked periodically by Xenus Link Sleuth: http://home.snafu.de/tilman/
xenulink.html (freeware, by Tilman Hausherr).
31. A splendid website of early Christian writings: www.earlychristianwritings.com (maintained by Peter
Kirby).
32. On the formation of the New Testament canon, see Bruce M. Metzger, The Canon of the New Testament,
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987.
33. Pedro Chamizo, La traduccin como problema en Wittgenstein, Pensamiento, 1987; www.metalog.
org/files/trad-witt.html.
34. The five Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John & Thomas in interlinked parallel layout: John W.
Marshall (ed.), Department of Religion, University of Toronto: www.utoronto.ca/religion/synopsis/meta-5g.htm.
35. A definitive analysis of the 613 rules of the Torah: Abraham Chill, The Mitzvot: The Commandments and
Their Rationale, Jerusalem: Urim Publications (www.urimpublications.com), 2000.
36. A superlative free office program, including pdf writer: www.openoffice.org.
37. Quick links to the entire Bible (NIV), chapter by chapter: www.metalog.org/files/bible.html.
38. William Tyndales magnificent NT (1534 edition), Matthew thru Acts 8: www.metalog.org/files/Tyn
dale_NT.pdf; the first modern-language translation based directly on the original (from Erasmus 1516 edition of
the Greek text, Luthers 1522 German version having been based on the Latin Vulgate), and from which fully
95% of the King James 1611 edition was plagarized without attribution; Tyndale himself was eventually martyred
for his venerable achievement.
39. A new invaluable resource for the Coptic Gospels, which includes a searchable version of Crums Coptic
Dictionary, a searchable Liddell-Scott-Jones Greek Lexicon, and Henry Tattams A Compendious Grammar of
the Egyptian Language (1863 edition): http://sourceforge.net/projects/marcion; english and czech documentation:
http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/marcion (by Milan Konvicka).
40. A free program for compressing entire hyperlinked archives to a single zip file: www.hiteksoftware.com/
jaba (utilized for generating the zipped version of the Metalogos website: www.metalog.org/files/Metalogos.zip).

FIFTH GOSPEL THROWS LIGHT ON SAYINGS OF JESUS

Darrell Turner, Religion News Service, New York 27.XII.91 (#15709)

(RNS) An ancient document composed of sayings of Jesus has generated a recent spate of scholarly articles,
along with strongly held opinions that the document, known as the Gospel of Thomas, deserves a much wider
audience. According to scholars, the 114 quotations in the Gospel of Thomas are as valuable as Matthew, Mark,
Luke and John for gaining understanding of the man Christians worship as Messiah. In a recent telephone inter-
view, Helmut Koester of Harvard Divinity School, the new president of the Society of Biblical Literature (USA),
said nearly all biblical scholars in the United States agree that Thomas is as authentic as the New Testament
Gospels. In an article that appeared in Bible Review in April 1990, Koester and his co-author Stephen J. Patterson
wrote, the Gospel of Thomas must be given equal weight with the canonical Gospels in any effort to reconstruct
the beginnings of Christianity.
Yet, despite excitement over the work for several decades, nobodys heard of it except the scholars, says
Paterson Brown, a former professor of the philosophy of religion who has written on Thomas for the journal
Novum Testamentum (www.metalog.org/files/tpb/sabbath.html).
Thomas was discovered in 1945 in Egypt along with more than 50 other ancient Christian, Jewish and pagan
works that make up a collection known as the Nag Hammadi Library. The documents, which date from the 4th
century BC to the 4th century AD, were written in Coptic, the language of early Egyptian Christians. The library,
including Thomas, has been translated into English and published in several scholarly editions. But many scholars
feel that Thomas should be made available in a separate volume. I think its urgent that Thomas be published
alone in a paperback edition, said Brown.
Unlike the other Nag Hammadi volumes, Thomas contains teachings of Jesus, which scholars believe would
be particularly valuable for Christian readers. Many students of the Gospel of Thomas believe that its material is
potentially of more interest to the general public than the much-ballyhooed Dead Sea Scrollsexcept that it is not

7
as well known. Many quotations recorded in Thomas are similar to those in the Gospels that make up what is
known as the New Testament canonthe writings of the early church that eventually came to be accepted as
authentic and authoritative texts for all Christians. For example, Saying 90 in Thomas, Come unto me, for my
yoke is easy and my lordship is mild, and you will find repose for yourselves, bears strong resemblance to a
familiar passage in Matthew 11:28-30.

Recent Scholarly Comments

Henry Barclay Swete, The Oxyrhynchus Fragment [PapOx 1] (lecture delivered to the Summer Meeting
of Clergy, the University of Cambridge, 29 July 1897): The site of Oxyrhynchus ... in Christian times ... acquired
a reputation as a stronghold of Egyptian monasticism.... The are the oracles of Jesus, or sayings in
which He reveals the Divine will. The book bears, I think, manifest tokens of its claim to possess this character. It
was written in the form of a codex, on leaves, not in successive columns on a rolla form which seems to have
been reserved among Christians for sacred or ecclesiastical books. Each saying begins with a formula which
indicates its oracular authority.... The reason why [x says in the present tense] is appropriate, is that we
have before us a fragment of a collection of sayings which purport to be , living oracles of the living
Lord.... There is a true Christian Gnosis here, but no Gnosticism.... There is no clear evidence of dependence on
any of our present Gospels.... Nevertheless, the Greek has, I think, the true ring of the evangelical style. It is
marvelously simple and clear.... Everything in this present fragment points to the simple Palestinian Greek of
bilingual Jews, accustomed to render word for word the memoirs of the original hearers of the Lord. I doubt if the
second century or the soil of Egypt could have produced anything of the kind.... I find it difficult to believe,
judging from the form in which they are cast, that any of these sayings are later in their origin than the first
century, or that the collection which contained them was put together after our canonical Gospels came into
general use. Both St Lukes preface and the postscript to St John speak of books other than the Gospels which had
been written, or might have been written, to contain the Gesta Christi. We have now for the first time distinct
evidence of the existence of books which contained His sayings only, detached from the narrative.... If it be asked
why no collection of found its way into the canon of the NT, or has survived as a whole to our own time,
the answer may well be that the Church needed, above all things, histories of the Lords Life and Passion and
Resurrection.
, The New Oxyrhynchus Sayings [PapOx 654] (lecture delivered at the Divinity
School, the University of Cambridge, 7 July 1904): We now know that in the third century there existed a collec-
tion of which was in circulation at Oxyrhynchus and probably elsewhere in the valley of the Nile.
The sayings were not simply jotted down in the note-book of a private collector, but were prepared for publi-
cation.... My impression [is] that the new sayings are substantially genuine,... at once new and after the manner of
our Lords earlier teaching,... which it is difficult to regard as the creation of subapostolic times,... traditions based
on the recollections of those who had heard the Lord.
Gilles Quispel, The Gospel of Thomas and the New Testament (lecture held at Oxford, 18 Sept 1957):
Unknown sayings of Jesus, taken from a Jewish-Christian Gospel originally written in Aramaic, have come to
light. The Gospel of Thomas ... is nothing else than the Gospel used by the descendants of the primitive com-
munity of Jerusalem, who seem to have lived on in Palestine almost completely isolated from the main stream of
Gentile Christian tradition.... There is, as far as I can see, nothing to show that this is not good tradition.... I do not
see why these ... sayings of Jesus that are contained in the Gospel of Thomas and by their wording, their style and
their content betray their Palestinian origin, should not have the same historical value as the words of Jesus
contained in our four canonical Gospels. They may have been transmitted in a Palestinian milieu quite isolated
from the rest of Christendom and not influenced by the trends of Pauline theology. And we must not exclude the
possibility that these people may have preserved sometimes the words of Jesus in a form more primitive than that
found in the canonical Gospels.
, Some Remarks on the Gospel of Thomas (New Testament Studies, 1959): The Gospel of
Thomas contains a certain number of sayings which transmit an independent Jewish-Christian tradition, neither
influenced by nor having served as source for our canonical Gospels.... We may try to discover the aramaisms
which are so frequent in these sayings.... Up till now about thirty logia have been found to preserve traces of their
Aramaic origin.

8
 , Gnosticism and the New Testament (in J. Philip Hyatt [ed.], The Bible in Modern Scholar-
ship, papers read at the centenary meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, 1964): The Holy Ghost as a
Mother [is] a concept well attested in the Jewish Christian Gospel tradition and quite understandable in a religion
of Semitic language.... The Gospel of Thomas ... contains evidence of a Gospel tradition transmitted in a Jewish
Christian milieu.... [It] is not gnostic at all. The adherents of the gnostic interpretation ... must explain how the
author could possibly say that the buried corpse could rise again (logion 5, Greek version).... For the Gospel of
Thomas, Christ is our Father and the Holy Spirit is our Mother.
Antoine Guillamont, Semiticisms in the Logia of Jesus found at Nag Hammadi (Journal Asiatique, 1958):
The Coptic logia [in the Gospel of Thomas] can, in certain cases, help to restore the Aramaic substratum of
Synoptic logia.... Certain divergences of detail between the text of the Coptic logia and the Synoptic text are
explained by reference to a common Aramaic substratum. In those cases, the terminology of the Coptic logia
enables us to restore the Aramaic substratum more surely than when we have only the Synoptic text.
Otto A. Piper, Review of Jung Codex (Theology Today, 1958): While all the world talks about the Dead
Sea Scrolls, relatively little publicity has been given to another find of ancient manuscripts, which may prove to
be of greater importance for the study of early Christianity than the former one.... The Gospel of Truth is
considered by the editors as being either the original work of Valentinus, or its revision by one of his earliest
disciples. This would date it at about A.D. 150.... One is amazed about the freshness of the authors approach.
There is no trace of polemics against certain types of established doctrine; and the exegesis, for example, of the
Prologue of John at the beginning of the work, is of surprising originality. The frequent references to New Testa-
ment passages and to Jesus the Christ indicate the authors conviction and determination to be a real Christian.
In a number of instances, for example in his view of man, the author is obviously indebted to Hebraic realism....
Far from being a philosophical treatise, the Gospel of Truth is a poem. The elegance of its style, the loftiness of its
outlook, the tenderness with which the secret is described, the unfailing dexterity with which the right term is
chosen in each instance ... point to an author of uncommon talent and profound spirituality and in every respect
superior to the [Church] Fathers of the second century.... With the Biblical writers he shares the Hebraic view of
the Ego as the totality of body and mind.... [There is an] almost complete absence of mythological elements in the
Gospel of Truth.
Robert M. Grant & David Noel Freedman, The Secret Sayings of Jesus (1960): Those who worked with
Togo Mina, director of the Coptic Museum before his death in 1949, made the first discoveries. These scholars
were H.-C. Puech of Paris and his pupil Jean Doresse.... [Regarding] the Gospel of Thomas, Doresse looked
through this gospel in the spring of 1949 and later announced that it was a Gnostic composition.... By 1952
Puech had discovered that Greek fragments of the same work had been found, many years earlier, among the
Oxyrhynchus papyri but had never been correctly identified.... In 1958 the first complete translation of Thomas
appeared; it had been made from the photographs of Pahor Labibs edition by the German scholar Johannes
Leipoldt.... The Gospel of Philip contains nothing but Gnostic speculations. The Gospel of Thomas, on the other
hand,... is probably our most significant witness to the early perversion of Christianity by those who wanted to
create Jesus in their own image. [Included as representative of much published commentary over the last half-
century.]
Kendrick Grobel, Introduction to The Gospel of Truth, A Valentinian Meditation on the Gospel (1960): [The
Gospel of Truth] is written in the non-Sahidic dialect, which only very few of the [Nag Hammadi] books ex-
hibit:... Subakhmimic (A),... the dialect once spoken ... something more than a hundred miles downstream from
Chenoboskion.... [There,] then, this translation of the Greek Gospel of Truth must have been made; there, too, in
all likelihood this copy of the translation was made, and from there later brought up river to Chenoboskion.... All
the Christians of the second century are personalities in a deep historical shadow, even where considerable of
their writing has survived. We can at least speculate that if Ignatius, Valentinus, and Justin Martyr had been
equally fortunate as to the survival of their writings, Valentinus might turn out to have been both the ablest in
talent and eloquence and the most original of the three and of their whole century.... [Prior to the Nag Hammadi
discovery, we could] understand Valentinus solely from the few reasonably reliable direct quotations that have
come down from him, principally in the Miscellanies of Clement of Alexandria. In contrast to the heresiologies of
the Church Fathers, the most striking thing in the fragments is that they reveal a Valentinus whose soteriology is
Christocentricnot pleromatocentric or sophiacentric, [as alleged by the heresiologists].... W.C. van Unnik,
professor of NT at Utrecht, has declared unequivocally (The Jung Codex) that Valentinus himself was the author
of this work. I agree with him.... Has [the author here] written anything that would have been a secret unknown to
an orthodox Christian?

9
 Krister Stendhal, Method in the Study of Biblical Theology, in J. Philip Hyatt (op.cit., 1964): The gospel
traditions ... in the Gospel of Thomas or in the Agrapha may point toward traditions which are as valid as those in
the NT. For the student of early Christian history the limitation to the biblical is an act of textual laziness or a
methodological sin.
Joachim Jeremias, The Parables of Jesus (1965 edition): It is a great help which the Gospel of Thomas
gives us, in offering us eleven parables from the Synoptics in its own version [9/20/21b+103/57/63/64/65/76/96/
107/109].... [Moreover, Thomas] contains ... four parables which are not found in the NT [8/21a/97/98].... The text
of the parables has not been allegorically transformed, but rather has remained intact (except for the two additions
to the parable of the thief); this confers a great value to the tradition which the Gospel of Thomas transmits to us.
Raymond E. Brown, The Birth of the Messiah (1977): The Holy Spirit [is] not male (feminine in Hebrew;
neuter in Greek).... The Gospel of Thomas, discovered at Nag Hammadi, has often been thought to contain some
authentic material from the ministry of Jesus not otherwise preserved in the canonical Gospels.
Helmut Koester, Introduction to The Gospel of Thomas, in James M. Robinson (ed.), The Nag Hammadi
Library in English (Biblio. 4, 1977): If one considers the form and wording of the individual sayings in com-
parison with the form in which they are preserved in the New Testament, The Gospel of Thomas almost always
appears to have preserved a more original form of the traditional saying. In its literary genre, The Gospel of
Thomas is more akin to one of the sources of the canonical gospels, namely the so-called Synoptic Sayings
Source (often called Q from the German Quelle, source), which was used by both Matthew and Luke.... In
its most original form, [Thomas] may well date from the first century.
, Ancient Christian Gospels (1990): What is put to the test is the early Catholic or ortho-
dox tradition, which asserts the monopoly of the canonical gospel tradition.... Only dogmatic prejudice can assert
that the canonical writings have an exclusive claim to apostolic origin and thus to historical priority.... The para-
bles of the Gospel of Thomas are to be read as stories in their own right, not as artificial expressions of some
hidden Gnostic truth.
James M. Robinson (General Editor for the Nag Hammadi Codices), Introduction to The Nag Hammadi
Library in English (Biblio. 4, 1977): The focus of this library has much in common with primitive Christianity,
with eastern religion and with holy men (and women) of all times, as well as with the more secular equivalents
of today, such as the counter-culture movements coming from the 1960s. Disinterest in the goods of a consumer
society, withdrawal into communes of the like-minded away from the bustle and clutter of big-city distraction,
non-involvement in the compromises of political process, sharing an in-groups knowledge both of the disaster-
course of the culture and of an ideal, radical alternative not commonly knownall this in modern garb is the real
challenge rooted in such materials as the Nag Hammadi library.... Primitive Christianity was itself a radical
movement. Jesus called for a full reversal of values, advocating the end of the world as we have known it and its
replacement by a quite new, utopian kind of life in which the ideal world would be real. He took a stand quite
independent of the authorities of his day ... and did not last very long before they eliminated him. Yet his
followers reaffirmed his standfor them he came to personify the ultimate goal.... Just as the Dead Sea Scrolls [at
Qumran] were put in jars for safekeeping and hidden at the time of the approach of the Roman Tenth Legion, the
burial [three centuries later] of the Nag Hammadi library in a jar may have been precipitated by the approach of
Roman authorities, who had by then become Christian.
, Nag Hammadi: The First Fifty Years (plenary address, Society of Biblical Literature,
1995): Clearly the Gospel of Thomas does contain sayings that cannot be derived from the canonical gospels,...
that are clearly not Gnostic, but have the same claim to being old, even authentic, as does the older layer of
sayings in the canonical gospels and Q. This can be illustrated by some of the kingdom parables in the Gospel of
Thomas.... Such sayings are not Gnostic inventions, but simply part of the oral tradition of sayings ascribed to
Jesus. What is perhaps even more impressive is that the Gospel of Thomas contains some New Testament
parables found in their pre-canonical form.
Ron Cameron, in David Noel Freedman (ed.), The Anchor Bible Dictionary, volume 6 (1992): Determining
a plausible date of composition [of Thomas] is speculative and depends on a delicate weighing of critical judg-
ments about the history of the transmission of the sayings-of-Jesus tradition and the process of the formation of
the written gospel texts. The earliest possible date would be in the middle of the 1st century, when sayings collec-
tions such as the Synoptic Sayings Gospel Q first began to be compiled. The latest possible date would be toward
the end of the 2nd century, prior to the copying of P.Oxy. 1 and the first reference to the text by Hippolytus [of
Rome, ca. 170-236 AD].... A date of composition in, say, the last decades of the 1st century would be more likely
than a mid-to-late-2nd-century date.

10
 Richard Valantasis, The Gospel of Thomas (1997): These sayings work at constructing a new and alterna-
tive subjectivity. Through reading the sayings of the Gospel of Thomas deliberately and consecutively, the readers
gradually come to understand not only the new identity to which the sayings call them, but also the theology,
anthropology, and cosmology that supports that new identity.... The dating of the Gospel of Thomas by means of
the oldest core of sayings suggests an early date of 60-70 CE [AD].... The Gospel of Thomas does not contain any
of the known systems or theologies of gnostic writers.... [It] connects the hearer and seeker to the very voice of
the living Jesus speaking in the midst of an interpreting community.
John Dominic Crossan, The Birth of Christianity (1998): Grenfell and Hunt drew very decisive conclusions
regarding the text contained in their pap. Oxy. 1. They clearly did not know that it formed part of the Gospel of
Thomas, but I cite their synthesis because, in my judgment, it applies perfectly to this Gospel as a whole. They
established four points: (1) that we have here part of a collection of sayings, not extracts from a narrative Gospel;
(2) that they were not heretical; (3) that they were independent of the four Gospels in the form preserved; (4) that
they are prior to the year 140 AD, and could date from the first century (Bernard Grenfell and Arthur Hunt, The
Oxyrhynchus Papiri: Part I, 1898).
Stephen J. Patterson, Understanding the Gospel of Thomas Today, in Stephen J. Patterson, James M.
Robinson & Hans-Gebhard Bethge, The Fifth Gospel (1998): As a sayings collection, it is likely that Thomas
originated sometime in the first century, when sayings collections had not yet given way to other, more complex
forms of literature, such as the narrative story or dialogue.... The social radicalism that characterized the early
synoptic tradition is also found in the Gospel of Thomas.... Moreover, some of the most characteristic features of
Gnosticism are not present in Thomas, such as the notion that the world was created by an evil demiurge.... It now
seems most likely that with the Gospel of Thomas we do indeed have a new text, whose traditions are for the most
part not derivative of other, better-known gospels, and which was originally written at a time more or less con-
temporary with the canonical texts.
Higinio Alas Gmez, The Nag Hammadi Gospels (1998): [Gnosticism] basically denied the physical reality
of Christ incarnate.... Little by little, scholars have come to comprehend that it is not appropriate to classify [the]
texts [of Thomas, Philip and Valentine] as gnostic,... since these clearly affirm the incarnation, crucifixion and
resurrection of Christ
Elaine H. Pagels, Exegesis of Genesis 1 in the Gospels of Thomas and John (Journal of Biblical Litera-
ture, 1999): The sayings [in the Thomas Gospel] are not randomly arranged, but carefully ordered to lead one
through a process of seeking and finding the interpretation of these sayings (log. 1).... Thomass theology and
anthropology do not depend upon some presupposed, generic gnostic myth. Instead,... the source of this reli-
gious conviction is, quite simply, exegesis of Genesis 1.... Such exegesis connects the eikon of Gen 1:26-27 with
the primordial light,... to show that the divine image implanted at creation enables humankind to find ... the way
back to its origin in the mystery of the primordial creation.
, Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas (2003): Now that scholars have begun to
place the sources discovered at Nag Hammadi, like newly discovered pieces of a complex puzzle, next to what
we have long known from tradition, we find that these remarkable texts, only now becoming widely known, are
transforming what we know as Christianity.... Let us start by taking a fresh look at the most familiar of all Chris-
tian sourcesthe gospels of the New Testamentin the perspective offered by one of the other Christian gos-
pels composed in the first century and discovered at Nag Hammadi, the Gospel of Thomas.
Nicholas Perrin, The Gospel of Thomas: Witness to the Historical Jesus? (paper, annual meetings of the
Society of Biblical Literature, 2002): The Gospel of Thomas was not originally written in Greek;... instead, it
shows every evidence of having been written in Syriac [Aramaic].... Secondly,... the Gospel of Thomas is not an
evolving sayings collection of different strata. Instead, it is a carefully worked unity, brought together by a Syriac-
speaking editor. [Heb Mr) (aram) = LXX Gk , as in II-Ki 8:28 and Ezra 4:7; see Mt 4:24 and line 6 of
www.metalog.org/files/ph_interlin/ph020a.html]
Jean-Yves Leloup, Introduction to The Gospel of Philip (French 2003, English 2004): To reach [thus] into
Christian origins is to find ourselves in a space of freedom without dogmatism, a space of awe before the Event
that was manifest in the person, the deeds, and the words of the Teacher from Galilee.... The Gospel of Philip
invites us to follow Christ by awakening in this life to that in us which does not die, to what St John called Eternal
Life.... Another important theme showing a kinship between this Gospel and that of Thomas is the idea of non-
duality.... The Gospel of Philip ... [is] dealing with subjects that were undoubtedly the source of much misunder-
standing in his times, as they still are today.
Harold W. Attridge, The New York Review of Books (1 May 2008): The body of Christian literature from

11
the second and third centuries ... reflects the intense debate among followers of Jesus.... The faction that won
these debates promoted its own version of the history of the times and suppressed dissenting voices.... In the last
century ... a number of manuscripts written by the losers in the ancient ecclesial battles was discovered.... The
most important was a cache of codices ... uncovered in 1945 near the village of Nag Hammadi, in Egypt.... The
entire discovery was soon labeled Gnostic, echoing a term of opprobrium used by ancient polemicists against
their ecclesial adversaries. Although at least one sect may have styled itself the Gnostics (the Knowers),
referring to a secret knowledge, the notion that this broad label accurately applies to all the marginalized early
Christian sects has been heavily criticized among contemporary scholars. Early Christians whose perspectives fell
from favor represented a wide spectrum of views and social groups.... The philosophy underlying ... [those]
systems of a generally Gnostic cast, owes much to the popular Platonism of the Hellenistic and Roman eras.
Biblical Archaelogy Review, Ten Top Discoveries (VI-X.2009): Among the Nag Hammadi texts was the
fully preserved Gospel of Thomas, which does not follow the canonical Gospels in telling the story of Jesus
birth, life, crucifixion and resurrection, but rather presents the reader with a very early collection of Jesus
sayings. Although this mystical text was originally believed to be a Gnostic text, it now seems to reveal yet
another strand of early Christianity.

These are the secret sayings which the living Yeshua has spoken, and Didymos Judas Thomas
inscribed them. (resurrected; Jer 23:18, Mt 13:34, Lk 1:1/8:10/10:21, Jn 21:25, Rev/Ap 1:17; the papyrus MS: www.
metalog.org/files/th_scan.html; hypertext interlinear: www.metalog.org/files/th_interlin.html)

1. And he {says}: Whoever finds the interpretation of these sayings shall not taste death. (II-Sam 14:14, Ps
118:17, Isa 25:8, Lk 9:27, Jn 5:24/8:51; Odes of St. Solomon, 26: He who could interpret would be dissolved and would become that
which is interpreted; this is apparently an introductory saying quoting Thomas himself, included [like Jn 21:24] by his own disciples, since
it speaks of the following as a collection of sayings; thruout the Greek fragments of Thomas, x says is in the present tensesee Henry
Barclay Swete [1897], Recent Scholarly Comments, above)

2. Yeshua says: Let him who seeks not cease seeking until he finds; and when he finds he shall be
troubled; and having been troubled he shall marvel, and he shall reign over the totality {and find re-
pose}. (Gen 1:26, Dan 7:27, Lk 1:29/22:25-30!, Rev/Ap 1:6/3:21/20:4/22:5; =Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, II.9/V.14)
3. Yeshua says: If those who lead you say to you: Behold, the Sovereignty is in the sky!, then the birds
of the sky will precede you. If they say to you: It is in the sea!, then the fish {of the sea} will precede
you. But the Sovereignty {of God} is within you and it is without you. {Whoever recognizes himself
shall find it; and when you recognize yourselves} you shall know that you are the Sons of the Living
Father. Yet if you do not recognize yourselves, then you are impoverished and you are the impove-
rishment. (Gen 6:2, Dt 30:11-14, Hos 1:10, Zech 12:1, Mal 2:10, Lk 11:41/17:21, Th 89, Platos Philebus, 48c/63c)
4.Yeshua says: The person old in days will not hesitate to ask a little child of seven days concerning the
place of lifeand he shall live. For many who are first shall become last, {and the last first}; and they
shall become a single unity. (Gen 2:2-3/17:12, Mt 11:25-26/18:1-6+10-14, Lk 2:21; Mary Anne Evans [George Eliot], Middle-
march: She could but cast herself, with a childlike sense of reclining, in the lap of a divine consciousness which sustained her own;
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Idiot: Children ... understand everything.... One need only remember ones own childhood; Graham Greene,
The Third Man: He never grew up; the world grew up around him, thats all.)

5.Yeshua says: Recognize Him who is in front of thy face, and what is hidden from thee shall be re-
vealed to thee. For there is nothing concealed which shall not be manifest, {and nothing buried that shall
not be raised}. (Ps 16:8, =Mt 10:26; in his scriptural Traditions the Apostle Matthias [Ac 1:21-26] relates Christs logion: Wonder at
what is in front of youquoted by Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, II.9; Jalaloddin Rumi [XIII century Afghanistan], The Question,
Spiritual Couplets: Gods presence is there in front of me; anti-Gnostic)

12
6.His Disciples ask him, saying to him: How do thou want us to fast, and how shall we pray? And how
shall we give alms, and what diet shall we maintain? | Yeshua says: Do not lie, and do not practice what
you hatefor everything is revealed before the face of the sky. For there is nothing concealed that
shall not be manifest, and there is nothing covered that shall remain without being exposed. (Lev 19:11, Ps
139:1-16, Zac 8:16, Sir 7:13, Th 14; Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov, II.2: First and foremost, do not lie!; Tobit 4:15:
Do not practice what thou hate; Confucius, Analects, 8.15: Is there any one word ... which could be adopted as a lifelong rule of
conduct?... Is not empathy the word? Do not unto others what you would not like done to yourself; Alan Turing, Computing Machinery
and Intelligence, Mind, 1950: It is not possible to produce a set of rules purporting to describe what a man should do in every conceivable
set of circumstances. One might for instance have a rule that one is to stop when one sees a red traffic light, and to go if one sees a green
one; but what if ... both appear together?; the Qurn 27:75: There is nothing concealed in the heaven and the earth, but it is in a clear
book)

7. Yeshua says: Blest is the lion which the human eatsand the lion shall become human. And defiled
is the human which the lion eatsand the [human] shall become [lion]. (Ps 7:1-2)
8. And he says: The [Sovereignty] is like a wise fisherman who cast his net into the sea. He drew it up
from the sea full of small fish. Among them he found a large good fish. That wise fisherman, he threw
all the small fish back into the sea, he chose the large fish without hesitation. Whoever has ears to hear,
let him hear! (=Mt 13:47-48; Coptic tbt [C401b] = Gk ; asyndeton, or omission of conjunctions, characterizing the Semitic
languages but not Hamitic or Indo-Europeanthus signaling an original Hebrew or Aramaic text underlying the Greek from which Coptic
Thomas was in turn translated; see P338 and Matthew Black, An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts: Asyndeton is, on the whole,
contrary to the spirit of the Greek language ... but is highly characteristic of Aramaic)

9. Yeshua says: Behold, the sower came forthhe filled his hand, he threw. Some indeed fell upon the
roadthe birds came, they gathered them. Others fell on the bedrockand they did not take root down
into the soil, and did not sprout grain skyward. And others fell among the thornsthey choked the seed,
and the worm ate them. And others fell upon the good earthand it produced good fruit up toward the
sky, it bore 60-fold and 120-fold. (multiple asyndeta; Mt 13:18-23, =Mk 4:3-9)
10. Yeshua says: I have cast fire upon the world-systemand behold, I guard it until it is ablaze. (Joel 2:3,
Mt 3:11, Lk 12:49)

11.Yeshua says: This sky shall be made to pass away, and the one above it shall be made to pass away.
And the dead are not alive, and the living shall not die. (Jn 11:25-26) In
(I-Ki 8:27!, Isa 65:17, Rev/Ap 21:1, Ph 123)
the days when you consumed the dead, you transformed it to lifewhen you come into the Light, what
will you do? On the day when you were united, you became dividedyet when you have become
divided, what will you do? (Mt 24:35, Th 61b!, Ph 86!; the entire observable universe?!see Th 111; NB the Hebrew term for
sky, heaven, Mym# [shamyim], only occurs in the plural, thus implying there to be more than one)

12.The Disciples say to Yeshua: We know that thou shall go away from us. Who is it that shall be
Rabbi over us? | Yeshua says to them: In the place that you have come, you shall go to Jacob the Right-
eous, for whose sake the sky and earth have come to be. (anti-Gnostic; apparently a post-resurrection dialogue; Mk 6:3,
Jn 7:5, Ac 1:14/12:17, Jas 1:1)

13. Yeshua says to his Disciples: Make a comparison to me, and tell me whom I resemble. (Isa 46:5) |
Shimon Kefa says to him: Thou art like a righteous angel. | Matthew says to him: Thou art like a phi-
losopher of the heart. | Thomas says to him: Oh Teacher, my mouth will not contain saying whom thou
art like! | Yeshua says: Im not thy teacher, now that thou have drunk, thou have become inebriated
from the bubbling spring which I have measured out. And he takes him, he withdraws, he speaks three
words to him:

13
 hyh) r#) hyh)
ahyh ashr ahyh
I-Am Who I-Am

Now when Thomas comes to his comrades, they inquire of him: What did Yeshua say to thee? | Thomas
says to them: If I tell you even one of the words which he spoke to me, you will take up stones to cast at
meand fire will come from the stones to consume you. (asyndeton; the Name does not appear in the papyrus, but can
be inferred with certainty; Ex 3:14, Lev 24:16, Mk 14:62, Lk 6:40, Jn 4:14/15:1, Th 61b/77, Ph 125; Odes of St Solomon, 11:6-9I drank
and was inebriated with the living water that does not die; note also the infinite gematria of Ex 3:14159263...)

14. Yeshua says to them: If you fast, you shall beget transgression for yourselves. And if you pray,
you shall be condemned. And if you give alms, you shall cause evil to your spirits. And when you go
into any land to travel in the regions, if they receive you then eat what they set before you and heal the
sick among them. For what goes into your mouth will not defile youbut rather what comes out of your
mouth, that is what will defile you. (openly, publicly; Confucius, Analects, 15.31: I once spent all day thinking without
taking food and all night thinking without going to bed, but I found that I had gained nothing from it; it would have been better for me to
have spent the time in learning; Bhagavad-Gita, 11.48: Not thru sacred lore nor sacrificial ritual nor study nor charity, not by rites nor by
terrible penances can I be seen; Isa 58:6-9, Mk 7:14-23!, Mt 6:1-6+16-18, Lk 18:1!, =Lk 10:8-9, Th 6/95/104, Ph 74c)

15.Yeshua says: When you see him who was not born of woman, prostrate yourselves upon your face
and worship himhe is your Father. (Josh 5:14, Lk 17:16, Th 46!/101!)
16. Yeshua says: People perhaps think that I have come to cast peace upon the world, and they do not
know that I have come to cast conflicts upon the earthfire, sword, war. (Isa 66:15-16, Joel 2:30-31, Zeph 3:8,
Mal 4:1, Th 10) For there shall be five in a housethree shall be against two and two against three, the
father against the son and the son against the father. And they shall stand as solitaries. (=Mic 7:6, =Lk 12:49-
53)

17.Yeshua says: I shall give to you what eye has not seen and what ear has not heard and what hand has
not touched and what has not arisen in the mind of mankind. (Isa 64:4; St. John of the Cross, On the Ecstasy of Deep
Contemplation, VII: It is of such true excellence, this highest understanding, that no science, no human sense, has it in its grasping.)

18. The Disciples say to Yeshua: Tell us how our end shall be. (Ps 39:4) | Yeshua says: Have you then
discovered the origin, so that you inquire about the end? For at the place where the origin is, there shall
be the end. Blest is he who shall stand at the originand he shall know the end, and he shall not taste
death. (Isa 48:12, Lk 20:38, Jn 1:1-2, Rev/Ap 22:13, Th 1/19; T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets: Little Gidding: The end is where we start
from; Jack Kerouac, Visions of Cody: What kind of journey is the life of a human being that it has a beginning but not an end?)

19.Yeshua says: Blest is he who was before he came into Being. If you become Disciples to me and
heed my sayings, these stones shall be made to serve you. For you have five trees in Paradise, which in
summer are unmoved and in winter their leaves do not fallwhoever shall know them shall not taste
death. (the five senses?!; Job 5:23, Ps 1:3, Th 1/18, =Ph 61!, Tr 28)
20. The Disciples say to Yeshua: Tell us what the Sovereignty of the Heavens is like. | He says to them:
It resembles a mustard seed, smaller than all (other) seedsyet when it falls on the tilled earth, it pro-
duces a great plant and becomes shelter for the birds of the sky. (=Mk 4:30-32)
21. Mariam says to Yeshua: Whom are thy Disciples like? | He says: They are like little children who
are sojourning in a field which is not theirs. When the owners of the field come, they will say: Leave our
field to us! They take off their clothing in front of them in order to yield it to them and to give back their
field to them. (Th 37) Therefore I say, if the householder ascertains that the thief is coming, he will be
alert before he arrives and will not allow him to dig thru into the house of his domain to carry away his
belongings. Yet you, beware of the origin of the world-systemgird up your loins with great strength

14
lest the bandits find a way to reach you, for they will find the ad-vantage which you anticipate. Let there
be among you a person of awarenesswhen the fruit ripened, he came quickly with his sickle in his
hand, he reaped it. Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear! (asyndeton; =Mt 24:43-44)
22.Yeshua sees little children who are being suckled. He says to his Disciples: These little children who
are being suckled are like those who enter the Sovereignty. | They say to him: Shall we thus by be-
coming little children enter the Sovereignty? | Yeshua says to them: When you make the two one, and
you make the inside as the outside and the outside as the inside and the above as the below, and if you
establish the male with the female as a single unity so that the man will not act masculine and the
woman not act feminine, when you establish eyes in the place of an eye and a hand in the place of a
hand and a foot in the place of a foot (and) an image in the place of an imagethen shall you enter [the
Sovereignty]. (anti-Gnostic; Mt 18:3; =Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, IIIsee Th 37n!; Mary Ann Evans [George Eliot], Middle-
march: The successive events inward and outward were there in one view: though each might be dwelt on in turn, the rest still kept their
hold in the consciousness; Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception: Inside and outside are inseparable; the world is wholly
inside, and I am wholly outside, myself; Odes of St Solomon, 34:5, The likeness of what is below, is that which is abovefor everything
is above; what is below is nothing but the delusion of those who are without knowledge; Socrates in Platos Phaedrus: Beloved Pan, and
whatever other gods be present, grant me to be handsome in inward soul, and that the outside and the inside be one.)

23. Yeshua says: I shall choose you, one from a thousand and two from ten thousandand they shall
stand, becoming a single unity. (Dt 32:30, Job 33:23, Ecc 7:28)
24.His Disciples say: Show us thy place, for it is compulsory for us to seek it. | He says to them: Who-
ever has ears, let him hear! Within a person of light there is light, and he illumines the entire world.
When he does not shine, there is darkness. (Mt 5:14-16, Jn 13:36; apparently a post-resurrection dialogue)
25. Yeshua says: Love thy Brother as thy soul, protect him as the pupil of thine eye. (asyndeton; Dt 32:10,
I-Sam 18:1, Ps 17:8, Pr 7:2, Jn 13:34-35; Geoffery Chaucer, The Pardoners Tale, 697-8: Lat ech of us holde up his hand til oother, and
ech of us bicomen otheres brother; Tennessee Williams, Camino Real: The most dangerous word in any human tongue is the word for
brother. Its inflammatory.... The people need the word. Theyre thirsty for it; the I Ching, hexagram 63, After Completion: Indifference
is the root of all evil.)

26.Yeshua says: The mote which is in thy Brothers eye thou see, but the plank that is in thine own eye
thou see not. When thou cast the plank out of thine own eye, then shall thou see clearly to cast the mote
out of thy Brothers eye. (=Mt 7:3-5)
27.(Yeshua says:) Unless you fast from the system, you shall not find the Sovereignty {of God}; unless
you keep the (entire) week as Sabbath, you shall not behold the Father. (Mk 1:13, Jn 5:19!; Justin Martyr,
Dialogue with Trypho, 12 [160 AD]: The new Law [the Gospel] requires you to keep perpetual Sabbath; =Clement of Alexandria,
Stromata III.15; here Sabbath = week as in Lev 23:15-16see P133 and P. Brown, The Sabbath and the Week in Thomas 27, Novum
Testamentum, 1992 [www.metalog.org/files/tpb/sabbath.html]; attain repose, as in Th 2/50/60/90)

28. Yeshua says: I stood in the midst of the world, and incarnate I was manifest to them. I found them
all drunk, I found no one among them athirst in his heart. And my soul was grieved for the sons of men,
for they are blind in their minds and do not see that empty they have come into the world and that empty
they are destined to come forth from the world. (Job 1:21, Ecc 5:15) However, now they are drunkwhen
they shake off their wine, then shall they change their mentality. (Isa 28:7; emphatically anti-Gnostic!, Jn 1:14; this
appears to be a post-resurrection saying)

29.Yeshua says: If the flesh has come to be because of spirit, it is a marvelyet if spirit because of the
body, it would be a marvel among marvels. But I myself marvel at this: how this great wealth has been
placed in this poverty. (anti-Gnostic; Th 2, Ph 23)
30.Yeshua says: Where there are three gods, they are {godless. But where there is only one, I say that}
I myself am with him. {Raise the stone and there you shall find me, cleave the wood and there am I.}
(Joseph E. Brown, The Sacred Pipe (a prayer of the American Indian, Black Elk): We should understand well that all things are the works

15
of the Great Spirit; [ Qurn, Baqarah, 2:62]: Verily, those who believe, and those who are Jews and Christians and Sabians,
whoever believes in Allah and the Last Day and does righteous deeds, shall have their reward with their Lord; cleavi ng the wood could be
seen as a metaphor for the crucifixion, removing the stone for the resurrection; see The Letter of Aristeas, 15-16 (wesley.nnu.edu/
noncanon/ot/pseudo/aristeas.htm)

31. Yeshua says: No oracle is accepted in his own village, no physician heals those who know him.
(asyndeton; =Mk 6:4, Tr 40)

32. Yeshua says: A fortified city built upon a high mountain cannot fall, nor can it be hidden. (Mt 5:14)
33.Yeshua says: What thou shall hear in thy ear proclaim to other ears from your rooftops. For no one
kindles a lamp and sets it under a basket nor puts it in a hidden place, but rather it is placed upon the
lamp-stand so that everyone who comes in and goes out will see its light. (=Mt 5:15/=10:27, =Mk 4:21)
34. Yeshua says: If a blind person leads a blind person, both together fall into a pit. (=Mt 15:14)
35.Yeshua says: It is impossible for anyone to enter the house of the strong person to take it by force,
unless he binds his handsthen he will plunder his house. (Isa 49:24-25, =Mk 3:27)
36.Yeshua says: Be not anxious in the morning about the evening nor in the evening about the morning,
{neither for your [food] that you shall eat nor for [your garments] that you shall wear. You are much
superior to the [windflowers] which neither comb (wool) nor [spin] (thread). When you are naked, what
are [you wearing]? Or who can increase your stature? He Himself shall give to you your garment.}
(garment = imagery?!: see Th 37/84, Ph 26/107, Angel, Image and Symbol, as well as the ancient and delightful Hymn of the Pearl:
www.metalog.org/files/hymn-pearl.txt; =Mt 6:25)

37.His Disciples say: When will thou appear to us, and when shall we behold thee? | Yeshua says: When
you take off your garments without being ashamed, and take your garments and place them under your
feet to tread on them as the little children dothen [shall you behold] the Son of the Living-One, and
you shall not fear. (Gen 2:25/3:7, Isa 19:2, Th 21; garments = images?!; this appears to be a post-resurrection dialogue; Clement of
Alexandria, Stromata, III: Salome asked when what she was inquiring about would be known. The Lord said: When you trample on the
garment of shame, and when the two become one, and the male with the female neither masculine nor feminine; Th 22/61b!)

38.Yeshua says: Many times have you yearned to hear these sayings which I speak to you, and you have
no one else from whom to hear them. There will be days when you will seek me but you shall not find
me. (Pro 1:28, S-of-S 5:6, Isa 54:8, Am 8:11-12, Lk 17:22)
39.Yeshua says: The dogmatists and the scripturalists have received the keys of recognition, but they
have hidden them. They did not enter, nor did they permit those to enter who wished to. Yet you
become astute as serpents and innocent as doves. (Mt 5:20/23:1-39, =Lk 11:52, =Mt 10:16)
40.Yeshua says: A vine has been planted without the Fatherand (as) it is not vigorous, it shall be
pulled up by its roots and destroyed. (asyndeton; Mt 15:13)
41.Yeshua says: Whoever has in his hand, to him shall (more) be given; and whoever does not have,
from him shall be taken the little which he has. (=Mt 13:12)
42.Yeshua says: Become transients. (or: Be led past; Gen 14:13 LXX translates Heb Abram the Hebrew as Abram the
[nomad]; Mt 10:1-23/28:19-20, Jn 16:28; Matsuo Basho, Narrow Road to the Interior: Every day is a journey, and the journey
itself is home; Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises (Fiesta): Thank God, Im a traveling man; Sylvia Plath, Unabridged Journals:
I can only pass on. Something in me wants more.... There is still time to veer, to sally forth, knapsack on back, for unknown hills over
which only the wind knows what lies.)

43. His Disciples say to him: Who art thou, that thou say these things to us? | (Yeshua says to them:)
From what I say to you, you do not recognize who I be, but rather you have become as those Judeans
for they love the tree but hate its fruit, and they love the fruit but hate the tree. (Mt 12:33, Jn 4:22, Ph 6!/50!/
108!)

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44. Yeshua says: Whoever vilifies the Father, it shall be forgiven him; and whoever vilifies the Son, it
shall be forgiven him. Yet whoever vilifies the Sacred Spirit, it shall not be forgiven himneither on
earth nor in heaven. (=Mk 3:28-29; see The Maternal Spirit)
45. Yeshua says: They do not harvest grapes from thorn-trees, nor do they gather figs from a briar-patch
for they give no fruit. A good person brings forth goodness out of his treasure; a bad person brings
forth wickedness out of his evil treasure which is in his heart, and he speaks maliciouslyfor out of the
abundance of the heart he brings forth wickedness. (I-Sam 24:13, =Mt 7:16/=12:34-35, Jas 3:10)
46.Yeshua says: From Adam until John the Baptist there is among those born of women none more
exalted than John the Baptistso that his eyes shall not be broken. Yet I have said that whoever among
you becomes childlike shall know the Sovereignty, and he shall be more exalted than John. (Th 15, =Lk
7:28)

Yeshua says: A person cannot mount two horses nor stretch two bows; and a slave cannot serve two
47a.
mastersotherwise he will honor the one and despise the other. (=Lk 16:13)
47b. (Yeshua says:) No person drinks vintage wine and immediately desires to drink fresh wine. And
they do not put fresh wine into old wineskins lest they burst, and they do not put vintage wine into new
wineskins lest it sour. They do not sew an old patch on a new garment, because there would come a
split. (Job 32:19, =Lk 5:36-39)
Yeshua says: If two make peace with each other in this one house, they shall say to the mountain: Be
48.
moved!and it shall be moved. (=Mt 17:20/=18:19)
49.Yeshua says: Blest are the solitary and chosenfor you shall find the Sovereignty. Because you are
from it, you shall return there. (Jn 16:28; Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago: Only the solitary seek the truth and break with
anyone who does not love it enough; Plotinus, Enneads, I.6.8: The Fatherland to us is there whence we have come, and there is the
Father.)

50. Yeshua says: If they say to you: From whence have you come?, say to them: We have come from the
Light, the place where the Light has come into being from Him aloneHe [stood] and He himself
appeared in their imagery. If they say to you: Who are you?, say: We are his Sons and we are the chosen
of the Living Father. If they ask you: What is the sign of your Father in you?, say to them: It is move-
ment with repose. (Isa 28:12/30:15, Lk 16:8, Jn 12:36, Th 27; Bhagavad-Gita, 6.27: When his mind is tranquil, perfect joy comes to
the person of discipline; his passion is calmed, he is without sin, being one with the Infinite Spirit.)

51.His Disciples say to him: When will the repose of the dead occur, and when will the New World
come? | He says to them: That which you look for has (already) come, but you do not recognize it. (Th
113)

52.His Disciples say to him: Twenty-four prophets proclaimed in Israel, and they all spoke within thee.
| He says to them: You have ignored the Living-One who is facing you, and you have spoken about the
dead. (Th 5; quoted by St Augustine, Contra adversarium legis et prophetarum, II.4.14; James Joyce, Ulysses, 14.112: You have spoken
of the past and its phantoms.... Why think of them?... I ... am lord and giver of their life.)

53. His Disciples say to him: Is circumcision beneficial to us or not? | He says to them: If it were
beneficial, their father would have begotten them circumcised from their mother. But the true spiritual
circumcision has become entirely beneficial. (Dt 10:6!)
54. Yeshua says: Blest are the poor, for the Sovereignty of the Heavens is yours. (Dt 15:11, Jas 2:5-7, =Lk 6:20;
Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front: The wisest were just the poor and simple people; Jack Kerouac, Visions of Cody:
Everything belongs to me because I am poor; note that the Greek of Mt 5:3, , can be read equally
Blest the poor in spirit or Blest in spirit the poorof which the latter makes more sense, since the parallel at Lk 6:20+24 explicitly
concerns economic poverty/wealth rather than spiritual humility/pride)

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55.Yeshua says: Whoever does not hate his father and his mother, shall not be able to become a Disciple
to me. And whoever does not hate his brothers and his sisters, and take up his own cross in my way,
shall not be made worthy of me. (anti-Gnostic; =Lk 14:26-27)
56.Yeshua says: Whoever has recognized the world-system has found a corpseand whoever has
found a corpse, of him the world is not worthy. (or, in a modern metaphor, a machine; Wis 13:10)
57.Yeshua says: The Sovereignty of the Father is like a person who has [good] seed. His enemy came by
night, he sowed a weed among the good seed. The man did not permit (the workers) to uproot the weed;
he says to them: Lest perhaps you go forth saying: We shall uproot the weed, and you uproot the
wheat along with it. For on the day of harvest the weeds will appearthey uproot them and burn them.
(asyndeton; II-Pt 3:15-17?!, =Mt 13:24-30)

58. Yeshua says: Blest is the person who has sufferedhe has found the Life! (asyndeton; Mt 5:10-12, Jas 1:12,
I-Pt 3:14; Victor Hugo, Les Misrables: To have suffered, how good it is!; Naguib Mahfouz, Zaabalawi, Gods World: Suffering is part
of the cure!)

59.Yeshua says: Behold the Living-One while you are alive, lest you die and seek to perceive him and
be unable to see! (Ecc 12:1-8)
60. (They see) a Samaritan carrying a lamb, entering Judea. Yeshua says to them: (Why is) that-one
(carrying) the lamb? | They say to him: So that he may kill it and eat it. | He says to them: While it is
alive he will not eat it, but only after he kills it and it becomes a corpse. | They say: Otherwise he will
not be able to do it. | He says to them: You yourselves, thereforeseek a place for yourselves in repose,
lest you become corpses and be eaten. (Th 1/50; Thomas Mann, The Magic Moun-tain: The spiritual possibility of finding
salvation in repose.)

61a. Yeshua says: Two will rest on a bedthe one shall die, the other shall live. (asyndeton; =Lk 17:34)
61b.Salome says: Who art thou, man? As if (sent) by someone, thou laid upon my bed and thou ate
from my table. | Yeshua says to her: I-Am he who is from equality. To me have been given the things of
my Father. | (Salome says:) Im thy Disciple. | (Yeshua says to her:) Thus I say that whenever someone
equalizes he shall be filled with light, yet whenever he divides he shall be filled with darkness. (Th 37n!,
Ph 65!; S-of-S 1:4; Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quijote, I: Of love it may be said, that it makes all things equal; Teresa of vila, The
Interior Castle, VI.4.1: All is to desire to enjoy the Husband more,... to be ardent to mate with such a grand Lord and take him as
Husband; thy Disciple: Coptic tek. indicates a masculine possessive [thy] of a feminine noun [disciple]: www.metalog.org/files/
plumley/html/morphology_a.htm#50; Pr 6:19c!)

62.Yeshua says: I tell my mysteries to those [who are worthy of] my mysteries. What thy right (hand)
shall do, let not thy left (hand) ascertain what it does. (Mk 4:10-12, =Mt 6:3)
63.Yeshua says: There was a wealthy person who possessed much money, and he said: I shall utilize my
money so that I may sow and reap and replant, to fill my storehouses with fruit so that I lack nothing.
This is what he thought in his heartand that night he died. Whoever has ears, let him hear! (=Lk 12:16-21)
64. Yeshua says: A person had guests. And when he had prepared the banquet, he sent his slave to sum-
mon the guests. He went to the first, he says to him: My master invites thee. He replies: I owe some
money to some merchants; they are coming to me towards evening, I shall go to place an order with
themI beg to be excused from the banquet. He went to another, he says to him: My master has
invited thee. He replies to him: I have bought a house and they require me for a day, I shall have no
leisure-(time). He came to another, he says to him: My master invites thee. He replies to him: My
friend is to be married and I shall arrange a feast; I shall not be able to comeI beg to be excused from
the banquet. He went to another, he says to him: My master invites thee. He replies to him: I have
bought a villa; I go to receive the rent, I shall not be able to comeI beg to be excused. The slave
came, he said to his master: Those whom thou have invited to the banquet have asked to be excused.

18
The master says to his slave: Go out to the roads, bring those whom thou shall find so that they may
feast. Tradesmen and merchants shall not enter the places of my Father! (multiple asyndeta; Ezek 27-28, Zeph
1:11, Zech 14:21, Mt 21:12-13, =Lk 14:16-23, Rev/Ap 18:11-20; William Wordsworth: The World Is Too Much with Us: Getting and
spending, we lay waste our powers; Robert Frost, New Hampshire: The having anything to sell is what | Is the disgrace in man.)

65. (Yeshua) says: A kind person had a vineyard. He gave it out to cultivators, so that they would work
it and he would receive its fruit from them. He sent his slave, so that the tenants would give to him the
fruit of the vineyard. They seized his slave, they beat hima little more and they would have killed him.
The slave went, he told it to his master. His master said: Perhaps they did not recognize him. He sent
another slavethe tenants beat him also. Then the owner sent his son. He said: Perhaps they will obey
my son. Since those tenants knew that he was the heir of the vineyard, they seized him, they killed him.
Whoever has ears, let him hear! (=Mk 12:1-8; multiple asyndeta)
66. Yeshua says: Show me the stone which the builders have rejectedit is the cornerstone. (Isa 28:16, =Ps
118:22Mt 21:42)

67. Yeshua says: Whoever knows everything but himself, lacks everything. (Ecc 1:13-14, Th 3)
Yeshua says: Blest are you when you are hated and persecuted; and you shall find no place there
68.
where you have been persecuted. (Mt 5:10-12)
69a.Yeshua says: Blest are those who have been persecuted in their heartthey are those who have re-
cognized the Father in truth. (ibid.)
69b. (Yeshua says:) Blest are the hungry, for the belly of him who desires shall be filled. (Mt 5:6)
70. Yeshua says: When you bring forth that which is within yourselves, this that you have shall save you.
If you do not have that within yourselves, this which you do not have within you will kill you. (Lk 11:41!)
71. Yeshua says: I shall destroy [this] house, and no one will be able to [re]build it. (Mk 14:58, Jn 2:19)
72.[Someone says] to him: Tell my brothers to divide the possessions of my father with me. | He says to
him: Oh man, who made me a divider? He turned to his Disciples, he says to them: Im not a divider,
am I? (asyndeton; Lk 12:13-14; John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath, 14: The quality of owning freezes you forever into I, and cuts
you off forever from the we.)

73.Yeshua says: The harvest is indeed plentiful, but the workers are few. Beseech therefore the Lord that
he send forth workers to the harvest. (=Mt 9:37-38)
74. (Yeshua) says: Oh Lord, there are many around the well, yet no one in the well! (Origen, Contra Celsum,
8.16: How is it that many are around the well and no one goes into it?)

75.Yeshua says: There are many standing at the door, but the solitary are those who shall enter the
Bridal-Chamber. (Mt 9:15/25:10, Th 16/49)
76.Yeshua says: The Sovereignty of the Father is like a tradesman having merchandise, who found a
pearl. That tradesman was wise; he sold the merchandise, he bought that single pearl for himself. You
yourselves, seek for His treasure, which perishes not, which enduresthe place where no moth comes
near to devour nor worm ravages. (multiple asyndeta; Ps 11:7/17:15, =Mt 6:19-20/=13:44-46, =Lk 12:33)
77.Yeshua says: I-Am the Light above them all, I-Am the All. All came forth from me, and all attained
to me (again). Cleave wood, I myself am there; lift up the stone and there you shall find me. (asyndeton; Jn
8:12, Th 30 note; Lao Tzu, Tao Teh Ching, 16: All things flourish, but each one returns to its root,... the eternal Tao; Victor Hugo, Les
Misrables: All comes from light, and all returns to it.)

19
78.Yeshua says: Why did you come out to the wildernessto see a reed shaken by the wind? And to see
a person dressed in plush garments? [Behold, your] rulers and your dignitaries are those who are clad in
plush garments, and they shall not be able to recognize the truth. (=Mt 11:7-8)
79. A woman from the multitude says to him: Blest is the womb which bore thee, and the breasts which
nursed thee! | He says to [her]: Blest are those who have heard the Logos of the Father and have main-
tained it in truth. For there shall be days when you will say: Blest is this womb which has not conceived
and these breasts which have not nursed! (Lk 1:42/=11:27-28/23:29)
80.Yeshua says: Whoever has recognized the world has found the body; yet whoever has found the
body, of him the world is not worthy. (Th 56)
81. Yeshua says: Whoever has been enriched, let him become sovereign; and whoever possesses power,
let him renounce (it). (thus sovereign without power: a veritable Zen koan!)
82.Yeshua says: Whoever is close to me is close to the fire, and whoever is far from me is far from the
Sovereignty. (quoted by Origen, Homily on Jeremiah, XX.3)
83.Yeshua says: The images are manifest to mankind, and (yet) the light within them is hidden. (Th 19)
He shall be revealed in the imagery of the Fathers light(but as yet) his light conceals his image. (Victor
Hugo, Les Misrables: God is behind all things, but all things hide God; Ps 104:2!)

84.Yeshua says: When you see your reflection, you rejoice. Yet when you perceive your images, which
have come into being from your Originwhich neither die nor representto what extent will they
depend upon you? (sense perceptions do not perish but merely become past; nor do they manifest something else which lies
beyond/below/within themselves; Coptic 6a, see P269.1: used after verbs of carrying or bearing when the bearer is thought of as being
beneath the burden; this is the epistemological [and thus ontological] hinge of the entire text; see Ex 14:14, Ps 139:16, Pro 20:24, Jn 5:19,
Th 19, and Angel, Image and Symbol; Anton Chekhov, Anna on the Neck: When Anna ... in the enormous mirror saw the whole of
herself, illumined by countless lights, a feeling of joy awakened in her soul; Chuang Chou [4th century BC China], Chuang Tzu, 2: Joy,
anger, grief, delight, worry, regret, fickleness, inflexibility, modesty, volition, sincerity, insolence:... without them we would not exist,
without us they have nothing to take hold of;... it would seem as though they have some True Master, and yet I find no trace of him; he can
actthat is certain; yet I cannot see his form; he has identity but no form; Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man, I.34: Upheld by God, or
thee?)

85.Yeshua says: Adam came into existence from a great power and a great wealth, and (yet) he did not
become worthy of you. For if he had been worthy, [he would] not [have tasted] death. (Gen 3:19, Th 1)
86.Yeshua says: [The foxes have their dens] and the birds have their nests, but the Son of Mankind has
no place to lay his head for rest. (Dan 7:13-14, =Mt 8:20; Thomas Wolfe, You Cant Go Home Again, I.6: Homeless, uprooted,
and alone, with no door to enter, no place to call his own, in all the vast desolation of the planet.)

87.Yeshua says: Wretched is the body which depends upon (another) body, and wretched is the soul
which depends upon their being together. (II-Sam 13:1-22, Th 112)
88.Yeshua says: The angels and the prophets are coming to you, and they shall bestow upon you what is
yours. And you yourselves, give to them what is in your hands, and say among yourselves: On what day
are they coming to receive what is theirs? (Rev/Ap 22:8-9!)
89.Yeshua says: Why do you wash the outside of the chalice? Do you not comprehend that He who
creates the inside, is also He who creates the outside? (Lk 11:39-41)
90.Yeshua says: Come unto me, for my yoga is natural and my lordship is gentleand you shall find
repose for yourselves. (Mt 11:28-30, Th 60)
91. They say to him: Tell us who thou art, so that we may believe in thee. | He says to them: You

20
scrutinize the face of the sky and of the earthyet you have not recognized Him who is facing you, and
you do not know to inquire of Him at this moment. (Th 5/52/76/84, =Lk 12:56)
92. Yeshua says: Seek and you shall find. But those things which you asked me in those days, I did not
tell you then. Now I wish to tell them, and you do not inquire about them. (=Mt 7:7-8; Mencius, 4th century BC
China: It is said, Seek and you will find it, neglect and you will lose it.)

93.(Yeshua says:) Give not what is sacred to the dogs, lest they throw it on the dung-heap. Cast not the
pearls to the swine, lest they break (them) in pieces. (Pro 23:9, =Mt 7:6)
94. Yeshua [says:] Whoever seeks shall find. [And whoever knocks,] it shall be opened to him. (=Mt 7:8)
95.[Yeshua says:] If you have copper-coins, do not lend at interestbut rather give [them] to him who
will not repay you. (Lk 6:30-36; here in the bound papyrus codex there is a single sheet puzzlingly blank on both sides)
96.Yeshua [says:] The Sovereignty of the Father is like [a] woman, she has taken a little leaven, she
[has hidden] it in dough, she produced large loaves of it. Whoever has ears, let him hear! (asyndeta; =Mt
13:33)

97. Yeshua says: The Sovereignty of the [Father] is like a woman who is carrying a jar full of grain.
(While) she was walking [on a] distant road, the handle of the jar broke, the grain streamed out behind
her onto the road. She did not observe (it), she had noticed no accident. (When) she arrived in her house,
she set the jar downshe found it empty. (multiple asyndeta)
98.Yeshua says: The Sovereignty of the Father is like someone who wishes to slay an eminent per-son.
In his house he drew forth the sword, he thrust it into the wall in order to ascertain whether his hand
would prevail. Then he slew the eminent person. (asyndeton; NB the tongue as the sword in ones mouth: Isa 49:2,
Rev/Ap 1:16)

99.The Disciples say to him: Thy brothers and thy mother are standing outside. | He says to them: Those
here who do the will of my Fatherthese are my Brothers and my Mother. It is they who shall enter the
Sovereignty of my Father. (Th 15, =Mk 3:31-35)
100.They showed Yeshua a [denarius], and they say to him: The agents of Caesar demand taxes from us.
| He says to them: Give the things of Caesar to Caesar, give the things of God to God, and give to me
what is mine. (Rev/Ap 13:18I-Ki 10:14?!: a most extraordinary gematria, indicating the notorious 666 as a monetary symbol; =Mt
22:16-21)

101. (Yeshua says:) Whoever does not hate his father and his mother in my way, shall not be able to
become a Disciple to me. And whoever does [not] love his [Father] and his Mother in my way, shall not
be able to become a [Disciple to] me. For my mother [bore my body], yet [my] True [Mother] gave me
the life. (Job 33:4!, Jn 2:4, Th 15!/79/99, =Lk 14:26; see The Maternal Spirit and Theogenesis; Odes of St Solomon, 35:6I was
carried like a child by its mother; Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, The Mustard Seed: Your mother gave birth to your body, not to you.)

102.Yeshua says: Woe unto them, the dogmatistsfor they are like a dog sleeping in the manger of
oxen. For neither does he eat, nor does he allow the oxen to eat. (Th 39; =The Fables of Aesop)
103.Yeshua says: Blest is the person who knows in [which] part the thieves enter, so that he shall arise
and collect his [belongings] and gird up his loins before they come in. (=Lk 12:35+39)
104. They say [to him:] Come, let us pray today and let us fast! | Yeshua says: What then is the
transgression which I have committed, or in what have I been vanquished? But when the Bride-groom
comes forth from the Bridal-Chamber, then let them fast and let them pray. (Mk 2:19-20, Th 14)

21
105. Yeshua says: Whoever shall acknowledge father and mother, shall be called the son of (a) harlot. (Mt
23:8-9, Lk 14:26, Jn 8:41, Th 101, Theogenesis)

106. Yeshua says: When you make the two one, you shall become Sons of Mankindand when you
say to the mountain: Be moved!, it shall be moved. (Th 22, the Tao Te Ching, 1, of Lao Tsu: These two are the same;
Dan 7:13-14, Th 86)

107. Yeshua says: The Sovereignty is like a shepherd who has 100 sheep. One of them went astray,
which was the largest. He left the 99, he sought for that one until he found it. Having wearied himself, he
says to that sheep: I desire thee more than 99. (Ezek 34:15-16, =Lk 15:3-6)
108.Yeshua says: Whoever drinks from my mouth shall become like me. I myself shall become as he is,
and the secrets shall be revealed to him. (Lk 6:40, Jn 4:7-15/7:37)
109. Yeshua says: The Sovereignty is like a person who had a treasure [hidden] in his field without being
aware of it. And [after] his death, he bequeathed it to his [son. The] son was not aware (of it), he accep-
ted that field, he sold [it]. And he came who purchased ithe plows, [he discovered] the treasure. He
began to lend money at interest to whomever he wishes. (multiple asyndeta; The Fables of Aesop; Mt 13:44)
110. Yeshua says: Whoever has found the world and become enriched, let him renounce the world. (Th 81)
111. Yeshua says: The sky and the earth shall be rolled up in your presence; and he who lives from with-
in the Living-One shall see neither death [nor fear]. Therefore Yeshua says: Whoever finds himself, of
him the world is not worthy. (apparently interpolated by Thomas himself; Isa 34:4, Lk 21:33, Th 11!, Rev/Ap 6:14)
112. Yeshua says: Woe to the flesh which depends upon the soul, woe to the soul which depends upon
the flesh! (asyndeton; Th 87)
113.His Disciples say to him: When will the Sovereignty come? | (Yeshua says:) It shall not come by
watching (for it). They will not say: Behold here! or: Behold there! But rather the Sovereignty of the
Father is spread upon the earth, and humans do not see it. (anti-Gnostic!; Ps 47:7, Lk 17:20-21, Th 51; Henry David
Thoreau, Walden: Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.)

114.Shimon Kefa says to them: Let Mariam depart from among us, for women are not worthy of the life.
| Yeshua says: Behold, I myself shall inspire her so that I make her male, in order that
(Pro 31:3, Ecc 7:28!)
she also shall become a living spirit like you males. For every female who becomes male, shall enter
the Sovereignty of the Heavens. (exquisitely ironical, since spirit in Aramaicthe original language of the logionis
feminine!; Gen 3:16, Ex 18:2, Th 22!; cp. [remarkably] English tom-boy; The 1001 Nights, I: Rely not on women, trust not to their
hearts!; Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, VI.12: Souls are neither male nor female when they no longer marry nor are given in marriage
[Lk 20:34-36]; and is not woman transformed into man, when she is become equally unfeminine, and manly, and perfect?)

The Gospel according to Thomas

Notes to Thomas

Hyperlinears of all logia: www.metalog.org/files/th_interlin.html

Coptic was the final, millennial stage of the classical Egyptian language, evolving after the invasion of
Alexander the Great (332 BC) and subsequently supplanted by Arabic following the Muslim conquest (640 AD);
see Biblio. 20. It has always been the liturgical language of the Egyptian Church; moreover, the ancient Coptic
versions of the Old and New Testaments are of great importance in textual Biblical studies. Utilizing many Gk
loan words, Coptic also adopted the Greek alphabet, adding these letters: 4 (shai), 3 (fai), 6 (hori), ` (janja),
2 (gima), and 5 (ti), as well as (syllable or abbreviation indicator); see P001 and www.proel.org/alfabetos/copto.

22
html. English terms which derive from ancient Egyptian via Coptic include pharaoh (Coptic p.r-ro: the-king,
P080/C299a); adobe (Coptic twwbe: brick, C398a; via Arabic and Spanish); oasis (from Egyptian via Greek;
Coptic parallel oua6e, C508b); barge (Coptic baare, via Gk [Liddell & Scott, Biblio.22: a flat-bottomed
boat, used in Egypt], C042a); and manna (Coptic moone: to feed, C173a). C... and P... are references to
pages/sections in Crums Dictionary and Plumleys Grammar (Biblio. 5+6).

Adam (46/85): Heb Md) (blood-red, clay)the original human and/or generic mankind.
Aesop (102/109): crippled Gk slave who flourished in the 6th-century BC and was executed at Delphi for
impiety, whose Fables were well-known thruout the ancient world; the only non-Israelite other than the Delphic
Oracle (Recognize thyself: Th 3) whom Christ is known to have quoted, as also in Lk 4:23 (moral from The
Quack Frog), Mt 7:15 (The Wolf in Sheeps Clothing) and various other allusions.
All (77): see Totality.
Bear (101): interpolated Coptic text (image of the papyri: www.metalog.org/files/pap.gif):
ta.maau gar nta.[s.mise pa.swma eb]ol
P050-C197a Gk P202+P186b-P035-C185a P050-Gk C034a
My.mother for did.[she.bear my.body for]th.
Bed (61b, NB as also in 61a): the Coptic text here is:
a.k.telo e`m- pa.glog
P199a-P035-C408b C757a P050-C815a
Did.thou[masc].lay upon my.bed.
This last term is the one and only Sahidic Coptic word for bed. Pace Guillaumont et alia (Biblio. 7), it does not
mean bench, which would be poi (C260b); nor does it mean sofa, for which there are several terms listed in the
English index of Crum under couch, e.g. ma n-.nkotk (place of-reclining, C225a)thus in the Sahidic version of
Ac 5:15, glog is used for and ma n-.nkotk for (my thanks to Hany Takla for this refe-
rence).
Blest (7/18/19/49/54/58/68/69a/69b/79/103): Gk ; (see Note 2 in the hyperlinear of logion 7); Mt 5:3 et
passim.
Bridal-Chamber (75/104): Copt ma n-.4eleet (place of-bride; C153a/560b) = Gk = Heb rdx
(kheder); the bedroom where the marriage is consummated (Jud 15:1, Ps 19:5/45:13-15!, S-of-S 1:4, Jn 3:29!, Mt
9:15 [ , the Sons of the Bridal-Chamber], 25:1-13)see Sacrament in Ph Notes and Ph
65/71/72/73/82/94/101/108/131/143.
Defile (7): Copt bht (from bwte, to pollute, be abominable; C045b) see Defilement in Ph Notes.
Dogmatists (39/102): Aram My#wrp (perushm, Pharisees: separated); ubiquitous dogmatic Jewish clerics of
that time, the religious party of Paul of Tarsus; Mt 5:20/23:1-39, Ac 26:5.
Everything (6/67): see Totality.
Gnostic (5): re the blatant anti-Gnosticism of these texts, see Incarnate, Recognition and Are the Coptic
Gospels Gnostic?, below; Gnosticism is by definition metaphysically Platonic, maintaining that the perceptible
universe and thus all incarnation are illusory; our texts, on the contrary, share the Biblical view that both the
universe and our incarnations are divinely created.
Heaven (20/44/114): see Sky.
Image/Imagery (22/50/83/84): Gk (similitude) = Heb Mlc (tselem, from lc [tsel, shadow]; Gen 1:26);
sensory perceptions and/or mental images, the five senses (Th 19!) together with memory and the imagination;
see Angel, Image and Symbol, below.
Incarnate (28): Copt 6n- sarc (in fleshutilizing the same Gk term as Jn 1:14, ); thus blatantly anti-
Gnostic; see Gnostic.
Inspire (114): Copt sok (to draw, beguile, gather or impel [not merely lead, but rather attract]: C325b); as in
the Sahidic version of Jn 6:44!! (Gk ); in Th 8, this same verb is used to mean to draw a net up out of the
sea.
Jacob the Righteous (12): Heb bq(y (yakov: heeler, supplanter; Gen 25:26) = Gk = English
James; the human brother of Yeshua (Mk 6:3, Jn 7:5, Ac 1:14/12:17, Jas 1:1), subsequently Elder of the Convo-
cation in Jerusalem.

23
 John the Baptist (46/78): John = Heb Nnxwy (yokhanan: Yah is gracious); the last Heb prophet and the
Messianic precursor (Lk 1/3/7); proclaimed the supremely innovative doctrine of forgiveness following repen-
tence (Mk 1:4)thus forgiveness cancels bad karma!; see Oracle, Ph 73/81/133, Baptism in Ph Notes, Logoi in
Tr Notes.
Kind (65): see Vintage.
Logos/Meaning/Saying (Prolog/1/19/38/79): Gk (concept + expression) = Copt 4a`e (C612b) = Heb
rm) (amr) = Aram )rmym (memra); English meaning derives from Anglo-Saxon mnan: to have in mind,
mention, conceive + expressthe exact sense of both logos and memra; Jn 1:1 thus reads In (the) Origin was
the Meaning; the common Gk term for word is .
Lord/Master (47a/64/65/73/74): Heb Nwd) (adn) = Gk = Copt `oeis (C787b); slave-owner; Ph 2.
Mariam (21/114): Heb Myrm (from Mwrm, mrom: exalted [Strongs 04791]; Ex 2:4/15:20); five females named
Mariam appear in the Gospels: the Virgin, Mariam of Magdala, Mariam of Bethany, Mariam of Cleopas, and
Mariam the human sister of Yeshua (Mc 6:3, Ph 36); the LXX as well as the oldest and best manuscripts of e.g. Jn
20 (vs.1 [) A], vs.11 [p66c )], vs.16 [) B], vs.18 [p66 ) B]) provide the correct transliteration of this (Semitic) name
into Gk letters: .
Matthew (13): Heb hy-Ntm (mattan-yah: gift of Yah); the Apostle/Evangelist, also named Levi of Al-
phaeus (see Levi in Ph Notes, Mk 2:14), brother of the Apostle Jacob of Alphaeus; Mt 10:3 etc.
Mentality, Change of (28): Gk (be with-mind, be wholeminded, after-mind, reconsider) = Heb
bw# (shub: turn around, return); Ps 7:12/22:27, Mt 3:1-2/4:17, Lk 3:2-14; the initial message of both John the
Baptist and Christ; this important term metanoia (mindfulness) contrasts with paranoia (beside-mind, mind-
lessness)it does not signify a mere feeling of remorse, which is (with/after-sentiment), but rather a
new mentality.
Natural (90): see Vintage.
Oracle/Prophet (31/52/88): Gk = Heb )ybn (nbi); a divine spokesperson, not merely predictive;
note that there are 24 books in the Heb canon of the OT, and also 24 Prophets including John the Baptist (see IV-
Ezra 14:45, Rev/Ap 4:4).
Origin (18): Gk ; a term from the pre-Socratic Gk philosophers, meaning not a temporal beginning but
rather the primary element or foundation of reality (thus in Gen 1:1 LXX, Mk 1:1, Jn 1:1).
Philosopher (13): Gk (fond of wisdom); this word (coined by the pre-Socratic Pythagoras) has
no precise Heb/Aram equivalent, and thus Matthew himself may have used the Gk word; but see the parallel term
at Job 9:4, bbl Mkx (khakam liba), wise in heart.
Prophet (52/88): see Oracle.
Rabbi (12): Heb ybr (my great-one) = Copt no2 (great, C250a); a spiritual authority; Jn 1:38/3:26, Mt 23:7.
Recognition (3/5/39/43/51/56/67/69a/78/80/91/105): Copt sooun (C369b) = Gk (gnosis); this important
term means direct personal acquaintance rather than mere intellectual knowledge, as in Jn 17:25 and I-Jn 4:7; see
Th 5, Ph 116/122/134, Tr 1/4/6 etc., Incarnate and Gnostic; NB Bertrand Russells justly celebrated Theory of
Descriptions, wherein the essential distinction is drawn between Knowledge by Acquaintance and Knowledge by
Descriptionmade necessary in English by its use of know for both meanings; other languages utilize two
separate terms, e.g. Spanish conocer (from ), to be acquainted with, versus saber (from Latin SAPERE,
to be wise), to know about.
Repose (2/50/51/60/90): Gk (up-ceasing); Ex 23:12, Isa 28:12, Mt 11:28; see also Th 27.
Sabbath (27): Heb tb# (shabat: repose); the (7th) day of rest; Ex 21:8-11, Lk 6:1-11, Tr 7/33see the
pericope Lk 6:4+ in Codex D (05) [Bezae]: That same day, he saw someone working on the Sabbath, he said to
him: Man, if indeed you understand what you are doing, you are blest; if indeed you do not understand, you are
accursed and a transgressor of the Torah; Nestle-Aland, Biblio. 23, textual notes (asyndeton).
Sacred Spirit (44): Heb #dqh xwr (ruakh ha-qodesh, Spirit the-Holy; feminine gender) Gk
(neuter gender) Copt p.pneuma et.ouaab (P080, masculine gender; as also Latin SPIRITUS SANCTUS); see
Spirit and The Maternal Spirit, Comm. 2.
Salome (37n/61b): Heb tymwl# (shlomit: peaceful); a female Disciple (Mk 15:40-41/16:1-8); Ph 59!/ 79!
Samaritan (60): those Northern Kingdom Israelites not deported to Babylon and hence lacking the later OT
scriptures (I-Ki 16:24, II-Ki 17), therefore in post-Exilic times considered heretics (as in Lk 10:25-37, Jn 4:1-42).
Saying (Prolog/1/19/38): see Logos.

24
 Scripturalist (39): Gk (scribe); Mt 23:1-39 etc.
Shimon Kefa (13/114): Heb Nw(m# (Shimn: hearing, Gen 29:33); Aram )pyk (kefa) = Gk (bedrock)
the chief Apostle, Simon Peter (Mt 10:2/16:15-19).
Sky/Heaven (3/6/9/11/12/20/44/54/91/111/114): Copt pe (C259a) = Gk = Heb Mym# (shamayim; plural);
note that sky = heaven in all three languages.
Spirit (14/29/44/53/60/101/114): Heb xwr (rakh: feminine gender!) = Aram )xwr (rkha) Gk
(neuter!) Latin SPIRITUS (masculine!); in all these languages the word for spirit derives from breath or wind
(Gen 2:7, Isa 57:16, Jn 3:5-8); see Sacred Spirit and Comm. 2, below.
Thomas (Prolog/13/Colophon): Aram Mw)t (taom) = Gk (duplicate, twin); the Apostle Thomas, author
of this text (Jn 11:16/20:24-29/21:2); also note that Heb Judas = praised = Arabic hammad as in Nag Ham-
madi (village of-praise) and Mohammed (great-praise), the Ishmaelite prophet: Gen 16-17/21:1-21/ 25:12-18,
Zech 9:6-7!, as well as not only the Arabic Qurn but also the absolutely essential Hadith (www.metalog.org/
files/hadith.html).
Totality/Everything/the All (2/6/67/77): Copt thr.3 (all of-him/it, C424a).
Transgression (14/104): Copt nobe (C222a) = Gk = Heb t)+x (khatat); a moral error, a sin = a vio-
lation of the Torah (the term sin has no other meaning, either in Biblical times or thereafter); see Perfect, Torah
and Defilement in Ph Notes.
Transient (42): Gk (by-led); someone led past, passer-by, itinerantsee Hebrew in Ph Notes.
Trees (19): the five trees may well refer to the five senses (NB that all emotions are presumably symbolic
feelings); see Tr 28 and Angel, Image and Symbol; it is noteworthy that the olive tree in particular does not shed
its leaves annually.
Vintage/Kind/Natural (47b/65/90): Gk (useful, vintage, benevolent, mild, easy), Ph 126; the an-
cients often confused this common term with the rare (anointed, as were Gk athletes), with reference to
the Hebrew Messiah.
War (16): Gk ; nowadays, one might well interpret the stars falling from the sky (Isa 34:4, Mk
13:25, Rev/Ap 6:13/8:6-12 ff.) as nuclear warfare, since hydrogen bombs are literally small man-made stars;
within this generation in Lk 21:24-32 is explicitly to be counted from the reconquest of Jerusalem (June 1967)
and therefore not from the founding of the modern State of Israel (May 1948); a OT Israelite generation could
range from forty years (Num 14:33, Dt 2:14) to one hundred years (Gen 15:13-16).
Wickedness (45): Gk ; this term has a root meaning of hard work or laborious drudgery, thus
oppressive or exploitative; Christs specific listing of 12 evils, at Mk 7:22-23: (1) : prostitution
(see Ph Notes), any sexuality explicitly forbidden by the Torah; (2) : theft; (3) : homicide;
(4) : adultery; (5) : selfishness; (6) : malice; (7) : deceit; (8) :
lechery [literally: un-moon-leading!]; (9) : envious/jealous/selfish eye [Dt 15:9, Mt 20:15];
(10) : derision; (11) : pride; (12) : foolishness [literally: divided mind, ambi-
valence; Rev/Ap 3:15-16!].
World-System (10/16/21/24/27/28/51/56/80/110/111): Gk (arrangement, order); originally the pre-
Socratic philosopher Pythagoras had used this term to designate the entire natural universe, as in cosmos; but in
the Gospel koin (later common Gk) it had also come to signify the conventionality or artificiality of the human
social system, as in cosmetic; see Lk 2:1/4:5-6/12:30-31.
Yeshua (Prologue et passim): Aram (w#y (Yesha) = Heb (w#why (Yehshua); from (#y-hwhy (YHWH ysha:
He-Is Savior); Josh 1:1, Ezra 5:2 (Aram form), Mt 1:21, Ph 20a; this name could not be accurately transcribed in
Gk, which lacks the SH sound; in the Gk and Copt uncial manuscripts it was generally abbreviated i\s\ or i\h\s\; see
also the second commandment as written on synagogue tablets of the Decalogue: hyhy, He Is (qal imperfect 3rd
person masculine singular of hyh, to be): www.metalog.org/files/decalogue.jpg.
Yoga (90): Copt na6b (yoke, C726); here, as in the canonical Gospels, meaning ones spiritual discipline (the
cognate Sanskrit term yoga conveys this sense quite well); see Ph 79.

25
1.A Hebrew person makes a (convert) Hebrew, and they call him thus: a novice (proselyte). Yet a
novice does not make (another) novice. [...] (The instructed) were not (formerly) as they (now) are, [...]
and they make others [... to receive like themselves.] It suffices to those (others) that they shall be. (Lk
6:40, Th 19!; Mt 23:15, Ac 2:10/6:5; Hui-neng (China, 638-706 AD), The Platform Scripture (Tan Ching), 30: When deluded people
understand and open up their minds, they are no longer different from the superior and wise; hyperlin ears of all Ph logia: www.
metalog.org/files/ph_ interlin.html)

2.The slave seeks only to be set free, yet he does not seek after the estate of his master. Yet the son not
only acts as a son, but also the father ascribes the inheritance to him. (Gen 15:2-3, Pro 17:2, Jn 8:35, Th 72)
3.Those who inherit the dead are themselves dead, and they inherit the dead. Those who inherit the
Living-One are alive, and they inherit both the living and the dead. The dead do not inherit anything. For
how will the dead inherit? When the dead inherits the Living-One, he shall not die; but rather the dead
shall instead live. (Th 111)
4.A nationalist does not die, for he has never lived so that he could die. Whoever has trusted the truth
(became) aliveand this-one is in danger of dying (as a martyr), for he is alive since the day that the
Christ came. (Gen 12:1-3, Isa 40:17, Mt 24:9; Desiderius Erasmus, In Praise of Folly: It really makes little difference when such a
man dies; he has never lived.)

5. The system is invented, the cities are constructed, the dead carried out. (asyndeton; Isa 40:17, Rev/Ap 18, Lk
9:60, Ph 105; Thomas Merton, Raids on the Unspeakable: [There is] one basic lie: only the city is real.)

In the days when we were Hebrews we were fatherless, having only our Mother (the Sacred Spirit).
6.
Yet when we became Messianics, Father came to be with Mother for us. (Gk , but Heb Mwty and
Aram )mty mean only fatherless, not also motherless.)

7.Those who sow in the winter reap in the summer. The winter is the world, the summer is the other
aeon. Let us sow in the world so that we will harvest in the summer. Because of this, it is appropriate
for us not to pray in the wintertime. What emerges from the winter is the summer. Yet if anyone reaps in
the winter he will not harvest but rather uproot, as this method will not produce fruit. Not only does it
[not come forth in winter], but in the other Sabbath also his field is fruitless. (asyndeton; Mt 6:1-6, Th 14/27/
104!)

8. The Christ came! Some indeed he ransoms, yet others he saves, yet for others he atones. Those who
were alienated he ransomed, he brought them to himself. And he saved those who came to himthese
he set as pledges in his desire. Not only when he was revealed did he appoint the soul as he desired, but
since the day of the worlds origin he appointed the soul. At the time he desires he came first to fetch it,
since it was placed among the pledges. It came to be under the bandits and they took it captive. Yet he
saved it, and he atoned for both the good and the evil in the world. (asyndeton; Mk 10:45, Jn 10:17-18; St Justin
Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, 47 [ca. 160 AD]: Our Lord Jesus Christ said: As I find you, thus shall I judge you.)

9.The light with the darkness, life with death, the right with the left are brothers one to another. It is not
possible for them to be separated from one another. Because of this, neither are the good good, nor are
the evils evil, nor is the life a life, nor is death a death. Therefore each individual shall be resolved into
his origin from (the) beginning. Yet those exalted above the world are immortal (and) are in eternity.
(asyndeton; Isa 45:7, Lam 3:38; Sren Kierkegaard, Either/Or: The true eternity is not located after either/or, but before it; cp. the
Chinese Tao)

The names which are given by the worldlytherein is a great confusion. For their hearts are turned
10.
away from the real unto the unreal. And he who hears the (word) God does not think of the real, but

26
rather he is made to think of the unreal. So also with (the words) the Father and the Son and the
Sacred Spirit and the Life and the Light and the Resurrection and the Convocation [and] all the
other (words)they do not think of the real, but rather they are made to think of the [un]real. [...]
Moreover they have learned the [all-human] reality of death. They are in the system, [they are made to
think of the unreal]. If they were in eternity, they would not have designated anything as a worldly evil,
nor would they have been placed within worldly events. There is a destiny for them in eternity. (Isa 5:20!;
asyndeton; note this extraordinary analysis of commonplace religious language as itself both perverted and perverting; Samuel Beckett,
Endgame: I use the words you taught me. If they dont mean anything any more, teach me others. Or let me be silent; see also Ph 13, and
Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, V.14: We are not to think of God according to the opinion of the multitude.)

11. One single Name they do not utter in the worldthe Name which the Father bestowed upon himself
by means of the Son, this existent Name of the Father, (which) he exalts over all. (Th 77, Tr 45) For the Son
could not become the Father, unless he were given the Name of the Father. This existing Name they are
made to have in thought, yet nonetheless they speak it not. Yet those who do not have it, cannot even
think it. But the truth engendered words in the world for our sake. It would not be possible to learn it
without words. (! Jn 17)
12.She alone is the truth. She makes (the) multitude, and concerning us she teaches this alone in a love
thru many. (Ph 6/18/40)
13. The authorities desired to deceive humankind, because they perceived him being in a kinship with
the truly good. They took the word good, they applied it to the ungood, so that thru words they might
deceive him and bind (him) to the ungood. And subsequently, when these who have recognized them-
selves receive grace, the (words) are withdrawn from the ungood and applied to the good. For (the
authorities) had desired to take the free (person), to keep him enslaved to themselves forever. There are
powers entrusted to humans. (The authorities) do not want him [to recognize] (himself), so that they will
become [masters] over him. For if there is mankind, there is [slavery]. (Isa 5:20, Ph 10; Henry David Thoreau,
Walden: The greater part of what my neighbors call good, I believe in my soul to be bad, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The First Circle: A
prisoner ... who has risen to that stage of development where the bad begins to appear the good.)

14. Sacrifices began [...], and animals were offered up to the powers. [...] They were offered up to them
still alivethey were indeed offered up living. Yet (when) they were offered up, they died. (But) the
human was offered up dead to Godand he lived. (asyndeton; Christ/Christic)
15. Before the Christ came, there was no bread in the world as (there had been) in paradise, the place
where Adam was. It had many plants as nourishment for the wild animals, (but) it had no wheat as food
for humankind; the human was nourished like the wild animals. But the Christ was sent, the perfect
person. He brought bread from heaven, so that humankind could be nourished with the food of human-
kind. (asyndeton; Ps 78:25, Jn 6:30-59; NB: in Mt 6:11its sole occurrence in all of Greek literaturemeans super-sub-
stantial, not daily)

16.The authorities were thinking that by their own power and volition they enact what they do. Yet the
Sacred Spirit in secret was (all along) energizing everything thru them as she wishes. (Jer 25:8-9, Jn 19:11!)
The truth, which exists from the origin, is sown everywhere, and the multitude see it being sown
17.
while yet few who see it reap it. (Mt 22:14, Th 21)
18. Some say that Mariam was impregnated by the Sacred Spirit. They are confused, they know not
what they say. Whenever has a female been impregnated by a female? Mariam is the virgin whom no
power has defiled, as she is of grandeur among the consecrations for the Hebrew Apostles and for the
Apostolics. Whoever of the powers (attempts to) defile this virgin, [... such] powers are (merely) de-
filing themselves. And the Lord was not going to say my Father [in] the heavens, as if he indeed had
another fatherbut rather he said simply [my Father]. (asyndeton; =Lk 2:48-49!!, Ph 6; Odes of St Solomon, 19:6

27
The Spirit opened the womb of the Virgin.)

19.The Lord says to the Disciples: [...] Indeed come into the house of the Father, (but) do not possess
(anything) nor likewise remove (anything) from the house of the Father. (asyndeton; Jn 14:2; Clement of
Alexandria, in Stromata, V.10.64, attributes to the Savior this saying: My mystery is for me and for the Sons of my House.)

20a.Yesha is a personal name, the Christ is a common noun. Thus Yesha indeed does not occur
in any (other) languages, but rather his name is Yesha as he is called. Yet his name Christ in Ara-
maic is Messiah, but in Ionian is: . Altogether, all of the remainder have (the Anoin-
ted) according to the particular language of each one. (Lk 1:31; lit. secret/revealed name, but the sense seems to be
proper/common noun)

20b. The revealed Nazarene is the secret! (Lk 4:16-30, Th 108)

21.The Christ has everything within himselfwhether human or angel or mystery, and (also) the
Father. (Lk 17:21, Jn 17:21-23, Th 3)
22. Those who say that the Lord first died and then arose, are confused. For first he arose and (then) he
died. If someone first acquires the resurrection, he will not die; (as) God lives, that one was [not] going
to [die]. (Lk 20:36, Jn 11:26, Th 29)
23. No one will hide a thing of great value in something conspicuous, but oftentimes has one placed
(things worth) countless myriads in something worth a pittance. Thus it is with the soulsomething pre-
cious came to be in a body scorned as shameful. (Porphyry, On the Life of Plotinus, 1: Plotinus ... seemed ashamed of
being in the body; Gen 3:7, Job 10:11, Th 29/37)

24.There are some made fearful lest they arise naked. Therefore they desire to arise in the flesh, and they
do not know that those who wear the flesh are the denuded. These who are made [into light] (by) dives-
ting themselves (of the flesh), are they who are not naked. (because they are clad in the images; Ph 26/85; Odes of St
Solomon, 25:8, I was clothed with the covering of thy Spirit, and thou removed from me my garment of skin.)

25. (Paul claims that) flesh [and blood will not be able] to inherit the Sovereignty [of God]. (=I-Cor
15:50!) What is this which shall not inherit? This which is upon every one of us? Yet this is rather what
will inheritthat which belongs to Yeshua with his blood. Therefore he says: He who eats not my flesh
and drinks not my blood, has no life within him. (=Jn 6:53!) What is his flesh? It is the Logos; and his
blood is the Sacred Spirit. (Ph 106!) He who has received these has food and drink and clothing. I myself
rebuke those others who say that (the flesh) shall not arise. (For) both of these are in error: Thou say that
the flesh shall not arise, but tell me what will arise so that I may honor thee; thou say it is the spirit in the
flesh and this other light in the flesh, (but) this also is an incarnate saying. Whatever thou will say, thou
do not say anything apart from the flesh! It is necessary to arise in this flesh, (as) everything exists
within it. (asyndeton; an astonishing philosophical argumentemphatically anti-Gnostic and explicitly anti-Pauline; Job 19:25, Isa
26:19, Dan 12:2, Lk 24:39, Jn 5:25-26, Ac 4:33, Rev/Ap 20:11-13; Moses Maimonides, The Guide for the Perplexed, I.51: Man is
[essentially] a speaking animal; Norman O. Brown, The Resurrection of the Body: Eternal life can only be life in a body.... Hence the
affirmation of Tertullian: Resurget igitur caro, et quidem omnis, et quidem ipsa, et quidem integraThe body will rise again, all of the
body, the identical body, the entire body.)

26.In this world they who wear garments are more valuable than the garments. In the Sovereignty of the
Heavens the garments are more valuable than those whom they have clothed thru water with fire, which
purify the entire place. (of materials; of images; Ps 104:2!, Ph 24/85)
27.The revelations thru those who reveal, the secrets thru those who hide (them). Some (things) are
kept secret by those who reveal. (asyndeton; Mt 13:10-15, Rev/Ap 10:4!, Th prolog 62/108)
28. There is water in a (Baptism of) water, there is fire in a Chrism. (Mt 3:11; asyndeton)

28
29.Yeshua took them all by surprise. For he did not reveal himself as he [truly] was, but rather he has
revealed himself as [they will] be able essentially to perceive him. They were susceptible to dying, (but)
he revealed himself to them. [He revealed himself] to the great as great, he revealed himself to the small
as small, he [revealed himself to the] angels as an angel and to mankind as (a) man. Thus his Logos
concealed him from everyone. Some indeed saw him, thinking they were seeing themselves. But
(when) he revealed himself to his Disciples in glory upon the mountain, he was not made small. He
became great, but he (also) made the Disciples great so that they would be capable of beholding him
made great. (Mt 17:1-8; asyndeton; 2Marco Polo, The Travels, I.13, re the Magi)
30.He said on that day in the Eucharist: Oh Thou who have mated the Perfect Light with the Sacred
Spirit, mate also our angels with the images! (NB in Heb/Aram the word light [rw)] is masculine, while spirit [xwr] is
feminine)

31.Do not disdain the Lamb, for without him it is not possible to see the door. No one divested will be
able to enter unto the King. (Jn 1:36)
32.The Sons of the Celestial Person are more numerous than those of the earthly person. If the sons of
Adam are numerous although they invariably die, how many more are the Sons of the Perfect Person!
these who do not die but rather are continually being born. (Gen 2:17, Ecc 5:16, Jn 1:13/11:26; Thich Nhat Hanh,
Living Buddha, Living Christ: We continue to be born; Bob Dylan, Its Alright Ma: He not busy being born is busy dying.)

33. The Father creates (a) Son, but it is not possible for the Son himself to create (a) son. For it is impos-
sible for him who is begotten, himself to begetbut rather, the Son begets for himself Brothers, not
sons. (Ps 2:7, Jn 20:17, Th 25, Ph 45!)
34. All those who are begotten within the system are begotten physically, and the others are begotten
[spiritually]. Those begotten in His heart [call forth] there to humankind, in order to nourish them in the
promise [of the goal] which is above. (Jn 1:12-13)
35.[Grace comes] forth from him thru the mouth, the place where the Logos came forth; (one) was to be
nourished from the mouth and to become perfected. The perfect are conceived thru a kiss and they are
born. Therefore we also are motivated to kiss one anotherto receive conception from within our mu-
tual grace. (I-Sam 20:41, Pro 24:26, Th 108, Ph 59)
36. There were three Mariams who walked with the Lord at all times: his mother and [his] sister and
(the) Magdalenethis one who is called his Companion. Thus his (true) Mother and Sister and Mate
is (also called) Mariam. (the Sacred Spirit; Mk 3:35, Th 101, Ph 59)
37. The Father and the Son are single names, the Sacred Spirit is a double name. For they are every-
whereabove and below, secretly and manifestly. The Sacred Spirit is in the revealed, she is below, she
is in the hidden, she is above. (Ph 74c; the Father is above and hidden, the Son is below and revealed, the Sacred Spirit is both
above and below, both hidden and manifest; the Mundaka Upanishad: That immortal Brahman alone is in front, that Brahman is behind,
that Brahman is to the right and left; Brahman alone pervades everything above and below. This universe is that Supreme Brahman alone.)

38. The Saints are served by the oppressive powers, for (the latter) are blinded by the Sacred Spirit, so
that they will think they are assisting a human when they are serving the Saints. Because of this, (when)
a Disciple one day made request of the Lord regarding a thing of the world, he says to him: Request of
thy Mother, and she will give to thee from that which belongs to another. (asyndeton; Mt 6:11, )
39. The Apostles say to the Disciples: May our entire offering obtain salt! They called [wisdom]
saltwithout it no offering becomes acceptable. (Lev 2:13, Num 18:19, II-Chr 13:5, Mk 9:49-50, Lk 7:35/11:49/21:15,
Ac 6:3)

29
40.Yet wisdom is barren [without (a)] Sonhence [she] is called [the Mother]. They [...] in salt, the
place where they shall [be as they were]they themselves being found by the Sacred Spirit, [the True
Mother who] multiplies her Sons. (www.metalog.org/files/ph_interlin/ph40.html; Pro 8, Isa 54:1, Lk 7:35, Th 49/101)
41.That which the Father possesses belongs to the Son. And also he himself, the Son, as long as he
remains small, those (things) which are his are not entrusted to him. (But) when he matures, all that his
Father possesses he bestows upon him. (literally becomes a man; Th 61b, Ph 2; Sren Kierkegaard, Either/Or: An heir,
even if he were heir to the treasures of the whole world, does not possess them before he has come of age.)

42.Those who stray are begotten by the Spirit, and they also go astray thru her. Thus by this same
breath, the fire (both) blazes and is extinguished. (Pro 16:4, Isa 45:7, Lam 3:38, Jn 19:11!)
43.Wisdom is one thing, and death is another. Wisdom (in Aramaic) is simply wisdom (in Greek),
yet the wisdom of death is (itself) dead. This which is the wisdom with death, which is from the ac-
quaintance with deaththis is called the minor wisdom. (Aram tmkx [khokmat] = Heb hmkx [khokmah]: wisdom;
Heb twm [mut]: die)

44. There are animals submissive to mankind, such as the calf and the donkey and others of this kind.
There are others not submissive, isolated in the wilds. The human plows in the field by means of the
submissive animals, and by this he feeds himself as well as the animalswhether domesticated or wild.
(Pro 14:4, Jas 3:7!, Ph 62) So it is with the Perfect Person: thru the submissive powers he plows, providing to
cause the existence of everything. For because of this the entire place standswhether the good or the
evil, both the right and the left. The Sacred Spirit pastures everyone and commands all the powers, the
submissive as well as the rebellious and isolated. For truly she continues [at all times] to control them
[beyond] the desire of their abilities. [...] (asyndeton; Ecc 7:14, Ph 9/42/72)
45. [Adam] was formed (and) [he begot], (but) thou will [not] find his sons to be noble formations.
(Ph 46) If he were not formed but rather begotten, thou would have found his seed to be made noble. Yet
now he has been formed, (and) he has begotten. What nobility is this? (asyndeton; Gen 2:7/ 4:1, Ph 33!)
46.Adultery occurred first, then murder. And (Cain) was begotten in adultery, for he was the son of the
serpent. Therefore he became a manslayer just like his other father, and he killed his brother. Yet every
mating which has occurred between those who are dissimilar is adultery. (born of the pretense called human,
rather than divine, generation; other than his true Father, God; Gen 4:1-16, Ecc 11:5!!, Jn 8:31-59!, I-Jn 3:12!, Th 105; see Theogenesis)

47.God is a dyer. Just as the good pigments which are called permanent then label the things which have
been dyed in them, so it is with those whom God has colored. Because his hues are imperishable, (those
who are tinted) become immortal thru his hands coloring. Yet whomever he baptizes, God immerses in
an inundation of waters. (a flood of images; Ph 58)
48. It is not possible for anyone to see anything of those that are established, unless he has become like
them. Not as with the person in the world: he sees the sun without being made a sun, and he sees the sky
and the earth and all other things without having been made into them. (Ps 8:3-4) But in the truth it is thus
thou saw something of that place, thou came to be among those there. Thou saw the Spirit, thou
became spiritual; thou saw the Christ, thou became christlike; thou saw [the Father, thou] shall become
paternal. Thus [in the world] thou indeed see everything and [thou] do not [see thy self], yet thou see thy
self in that [place]. For what thou see, thou shall become. (asyndeta)
49. Faith receives, love gives. [No one can receive] without faith, no one can give without love.
Therefore we believe so that indeed we shall receive, yet we give so that we shall love. Otherwise, if one
gives without love, he derives no benefit from having given. (asyndeta)

30
50. Whoever has not received the Lord, continues still among the Hebrews. (Th 43, Ph 6/108)
51. The Apostles who preceded us called (him) thus: Yeshua the Nazirite Messiahthis is Yeshua the
Nazirite Christ. The last name is the Christ, the first is Yeshua, that in the middle is the Nazirite.
Messiah has two references: both the anointed and also the measured. Yeshua in Hebrew is the
atonement. Nazara is the truth, therefore the Nazirite is the true. The Christ is the measured, the
Nazirite and Yeshua are the measurement. (Num 6:1-8, Jud 13:5Mt 2:23, Ph 20a)
The pearl which is cast down into the mire is not despised, nor if it is anointed with balsam oil is it
52.
(more) valued. But rather it has its great worth to its owner at all times. So it is with the Sons of God
whatever happens to them, in their heart they still have the great value to their Father. (Job 30:19, Jer 38:6)
53. If thou say Im a Jewno one will be moved. If thou say Im a Romanno one will be disturbed.
If thou say Im a Greek, a barbarian, a slave, a freemanno one will be troubled. If thou [say] Im a
Christic[everyone] shall heed. (Th 2!) May it occur that I have [received from him] in this manner,
this which [the worldly] shall not be able to withstand when [they hear] this name! (Ac 5:41 versus 22:25)
54.(A) god is a cannibal. Because of this, mankind [is sacrificed] to it. Before mankind was sacrificed,
animals were being sacrificed. For these to which they are sacrificed are not divinities. (Isa 44:9-20!, Ph 14)
55. Vessels of glass and vessels of pottery always come forth thru fire. But if glass vessels break they are
recast, (for) they had come to be by means of a breath. Yet if pottery vessels break they are destroyed,
for they had come to be without breath. (Gen 2:7, Jn 20:22; asyndeton; =spirit; ceramics can only be recast before firing: Jer
18:4-10/19:11)

56. A donkey turning at a millstone did a hundred miles walking. (When) it had been released, it found
itself still in the same place. There are persons who take many journeys and make no progress anywhere.
When evening came upon them, they discerned neither city nor village, neither creation nor nature,
neither power nor angel. In vain did the wretches toil! (Ps 127:2, Ecc 2:11; asyndeton; Clement of Alexandria, in Stro-
mata, I.8.41, attributes to the Savior this saying: These are they who ply their looms and weave nothing.)

The Eucharist is Yeshua. For in Aramaic they call him farisatha (#rp)this is, the out-spread. For
57.
Yeshua came to crucify the world. (Odes of St Solomon, 27:1-2I stretched out my hands and sanctified my Lord; for the
extension of my hands is his sign.)

58.The Lord went into the dyeworks of Levi. He took 72 complexions, he threw them into the vat. He
brought them all up white, and he says: This is how the Son of Mankind has come to youhe acts as (a)
dyer. (Isa 1:18, Ph 47; asyndeton; of the images; cp. equalization in Th 61b; Gen 10 LXX lists 72 nations in all the world; also, Lk
10:1 in MSS p75 B D[05] mentions 72 Disciples)

59.The wisdom which (humans) call barren is herself the Mother of the Angels. (Pro 8:12+32, Lk 7:35!!, Ph 40)
And the Companion of the [Christ] is Mariam the Magdalene. The [Lord loved] Mariam more than [all
the (other)] Disciples, [and he] kissed her often on her [mouth]. The other [women] saw his love for
Mariam, they say to him: Why do thou love [her] more than all of us? | The Savior replied, he says to
them: Why do I not love you as (I do) her? (Pro 24:26, S-of-S 1:2/6:9, Ph 35/36/40, Lewis Wallace, Ben Hur, V.16: He
kissed her. Was it only a kiss of peace?; asyndeton; Th 61b)

60.(While) a blind (person) and one who sees are both in the dark, they do not differ from one another.
When the light comes, then he who sees shall behold the light, and he who is blinded shall remain in the
darkness. (Jn 9, Th 34)
61.The Lord says: Blest is he who is before he comes into Being! (=Th 19!, Ph 1) For he who is, both was
and shall be. (Rev/Ap 1:8)

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62.The exaltation of mankind is not manifest but rather is implicit. Because of this he is master of the
animals which are stronger than himwho is greater than them both manifestly and implicitly. And this
gives to them their survival. Yet (when) mankind separates from them, they kill each other and gnaw
each other and devour each other, because they find no food. Yet they have found food, now that man-
kind has cultivated the earth. (Job 35:11, Mk 1:13, Jas 3:7!, Ph 44; asyndeton)
63. If one goes down into the water (of Baptism) and comes back up without having received anything,
saying Im a Christic, he has taken the name on loan. Yet if he receives the Sacred Spirit, he has the
gift of the name. He who has received a gift is not deprived of it, but he who has taken a loan has it
demanded from him. (Jn 4:10, Th 41)
64.This is how it is when one exists in a mystery: the Sacrament of Marriage is grand. For the world is
complex[the system] is based upon mankind, yet [mankind is] based upon matrimony. (Therefore)
contemplate the Pure Mating, for it has [great] power! Its imagery consists in a defiling [of bodies].
(Th 61b, Ph 79; matrimonypatrimony, human rather than divine generation and inheritance: see Theogenesis; Lev 15:18!!)

65. (Among) the unclean spirits there are essentially male and female. The males indeed are those who
thru an inequality mate with the souls inhabiting a female form, yet the females are those who (thus)
unite with a male form. (Ph 46) And no one will be able to escape from these (once) they seize him
(unless) he receives both male and female powerwhich is the Bridegroom with the Bride. Yet one
receives them in the mirrored Bridal-Chamber. Whenever the foolish women see a male sitting alone,
they are accustomed to leap upon him, to carouse with him and defile him. So also the foolish men when
they see a beautiful female sitting alone, they seduce her (or) coerce her in the desire to defile her. Yet
if the man is seen sitting together with his woman, the females cannot intrude upon the man nor can the
males intrude upon the woman. So it is (when) the imagery and the angel are mated together, neither
can anyone dare to intrude upon the male or the female. (Ph 30) He who comes forth from the world
cannot be detained any longer merely because he (previously) was in the world. He is revealed as
beyond both the yearning and the fear of the [flesh]. He is master over [desire], he is more precious than
envy. And if [the multitude] come to seize him (and) to strangle [him], how will this one not be able to
escape [by the salvation] of God? How shall he be able [to fear them]? (asyndeton; Ps 3:6)
Frequently there are some who come (and) [they say]: We are faithful, hide [us ... from unclean] and
66.
demonic spirits! But if they had possessed the Sacred Spirit, no unclean spirit would have clung to them.
(asyndeton; Mk 1:39)

67. Do not fear the essence of the flesh, nor love it. If thou fear it, it will become thy master; if thou love
it, it will devour thee (and) strangle thee. (asyndeton; Ps 56:4, Jn 6:63)
68. One exists either in this world or in the resurrection or in the transitional regions. May it not occur
that I be found in (the latter)! (In) this world there is good and evil. Its goods are not good and its evils
are not evil. (Ph 9) Yet there is evil after this world, which is truly evil: that which is called the transition
it is death. While we are in this world it is appropriate for us to be born in the resurrection, so that if
we are divested of the flesh we shall find ourselves in the repose (and) not wander in the transition. For
many go astray on the way. Thus it is good to come forth from the world before humankind is caused to
transgress. (asyndeton; Th 60, Rev/Ap 20:5; Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals: Only that life end not before I am born.)
69.Some indeed neither wish nor have the ability. Yet others if they wish receive no benefit, because
they did not practice. For desire makes them transgressors. Yet not desiring righteousness shall conceal
from them both the wish and (their) lack of accomplishment. (Hsn Tzu, 3rd century BC China: An inferior man can
become a superior man, but he does not want to.)

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70. An Apostolic saw in a vision some who were confined in a house of fire, crying out [in the] air with
a fiery [voice], cast in the flames [for an era]. There is water in [...], and they proclaim to themselves:
[...] The waters can[not] save us [from death! Misled by] their desire, they received [death as] chastise-
mentthis which is called the [outermost] darkness. (probably Philip himself; Ps 66:12, Mt 25:30, Lk 16:19-31!, Rev/
Ap 20:14-15)

71. The enemy [comes] forth in water with fire. The soul and the spirit have come forth [in] water and
fire with light, which pertain to the Son of the Bridal-Chamber. The fire is the Chrism, the light is the
fire. I do not speak of this fire that has no form, but rather the other onewhose form is white, which is
made of beautiful light and which bestows splendor. (Isa 43:2, Ph 26/28/58)
72. The truth did not come unto the world naked, but rather it has come in symbolic imagery. (The
world) will not receive it in any other fashion. There is a rebirth together with a reborn imagery. It is
truly appropriate not to be reborn thru the imagery. (Jn 3) What is the resurrection with its imagery?it
is appropriate to arise thru the imagery. The Bridal-Chamber with its imagery?it is appropriate to
come into the truth thru the imagery, which is this restoration. It is appropriate for those born not only
of the words the Father with the Son with the Sacred Spirit, but (moreover) are begotten of them
themselves. Whoever is not begotten of them, will have the name also taken from him. (Ph 63) Yet one
receives them in the Chrism of the fullness in the power of the cross, which the Apostles call: the right
with the left. (Ph 9/44) For this-one is no longer a Christic but rather a Christ. (Isa 30:21, Ac 3:21; spiritual
rebirth corporeal resurrection: see Ph 130!; anti-Gnostic)

The Lord [did] everything sacramentally: a Baptism with a Chrism with a Eucharist with an Atone-
73.
ment with a [Holy] Bridal-Chamber.
74a.He says: I came to make [the inner] as the [outer (and) the] outer as the [inner. (=Th 22!!) He spoke
of] everything in that place, which is there [above] this place, by means of symbolic [images. ...] (asyn-
deton; Ph 72)

74b. Those who say [Im a Christic] come from the place beyond [all] confusion. (Ph 10/18/22/97/134, Tr 3
ff.)

74c.He who is manifest [from that place] which is there above, is called he who is below. And He who
is hidden, is He who is above him. For it is good that they say the inner and the outer, together with
what is outside of the outer. Because of this, the Lord called destruction the outer darkness (=Mt 8:12!);
there is nothing beyond it. He says my Father who is in secret. He says Go into thy inner chamber,
shut thy door behind thee (and) pray to thy Father who is in secret. (=Mt 6:6!) This is He who is within
them all. Yet He who is within them all is the Fullnessbeyond Him there is nothing further within.
This is what is meant by He who is above them. (asyndeton; Th 77, Ph 37; Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali: He it is, the
innermost one, who awakens my being)

75.Before Christ some came forth. They were no longer able to enter into whence they emerged, and
they were no longer able to exit from whither they entered. Yet the Christ came. Those who had gone in
he brought out, and those who had gone out he brought in. (I-Ki 3:7)
76.In the days when Eve was within Adam, there was no death. When she was separated from him,
death came to be. If (she) again enters (and) he receives (her) to him, death shall no longer be. (Ph 86; or
when life was within mankind; asyndeton)

77.My God, my God, why oh Lord [did] thou abandon me?he spoke these (words) on the cross.
For he divided the place [below from the place above], having been begotten in the [Sacred] Spirit by
God. ( =Ps 22:1Mk 15:34!; anti-Gnostic)

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78.The [Lord arose] from among the dead. [He became (again)] as he had been, but [his body] was made
[entirely] perfect. He is incarnate, but this [flesh is indeed] a true flesh. [Yet our flesh] is not true, but
rather a mirror-image of the true [flesh]. (Jn 1:14/20:27, II-Jn 7; anti-Gnostic!)
79. Let (the) Bridal-Chamber not be for the beasts nor for the slaves nor for impure women!but rather
it is for free men with virgins. (Gen 24:16, I-Ki 1:2, Ac 21:8-9!, Th 61b!, Ph 127!; Odes of St Solomon, 42:9-12Like the arm
of the bridegroom over the bride, so is my yoke over those who know me; and as the bed that is spread in the house of the bridegroom and
bride, so does my love cover those that believe in me.)

80.Thru the Sacred Spirit we are indeed born, yet we are reborn thru the Christ. In both we are anointed
thru the Spirit(and) having been begotten, we were mated. (asyndeton; Gen 2:7, Jn 3:7, Ph 72)
81.Without light, no one will be able to see himself either in water or in (a) mirror. Nor again without
water or mirror will thou be able to see (thyself) in light. Therefore it is appropriate to be baptized in
bothin the light as well as the water. Yet the light is the Chrism. (Pro 27:19, Isa 43:2, Mt 3:11; Odes of St Solo-
mon, 13:1Behold! The Lord is our mirror; open your eyes and see them in him.)

82.There were three vestibules for places of giving offering in Jerusalemone open to the west called
the holy, another open to the south called the holy of the holiness, the third open to the east called the
holy of the holinesses where the High Priest alone enters. The Baptism is the holy vestibule, [the
Atonement] is the holy of the holiness, the holy of the holinesses is the Bridal-Chamber. The Baptism
has the resurrection [with] the Atonement entering into the Bridal-Chamber. Yet the Bridal-Chamber is
more exalted than those. [...] Thou will find nothing that [compares with it]. (multiple asyndeta; Lev 16, Num
18:7; They were: Copt ne.u, Durative Imperfect tense, P194: hence this entry, like saying 137, was written after the Roman conquest of
70 AD; Moses ben Nahman [1194-1270 AD], Letter on Holiness: The sexual relationship is in reality a thing of great exaltation when it is
appropriate and harmonious. This great secret is the same secret of those cherubim who copulate with each other in the image of male and
female.... Keep this secret and do not reveal it to anyone unworthy, for here is where you glimpse the secret of the loftiness of an
appropriate sexual relationship.... When the sexual relation points to the Name, there is nothing more righteous and more holy than it.)

83.[The Saints] are those who pray [always for] Jerusalem [and love] Jerusalem; they [are already in]
Jerusalem (and) they see [Jerusalem now.] These are called the Saints of the holinesses. (asyndeton; Ps
122:6, Rev/Ap 21:10)

84.[... The] curtain (of the Temple) was torn [in order to reveal] the Bridal-Chamber, (which) is nothing
other than the image [of the ...] place above. [...] Its curtain was torn from the top to the bottom, for it
was appropriate for some from below to go above. (Mk 15:38, Th 84)
85.Those who have been clothed in the Perfect Lightthe powers can neither see them nor restrain
them. Yet one shall be clothed with light in the Sacrament of the Mating. (Ph 24/26; Odes of St Solomon, 21:2,
I took off darkness and clothed myself with light.)

86. If the female had not separated from the male, she would not afterward have died with the male.
Their separation was the inception of death. (Gen 3:19) Therefore the Christ came, so that he might rectify
to himself the separation that had obtained from (the) beginning, by his mating the two together. And by
his mating them together, he shall give their lives to those who have died in the separation. Yet the
woman mates with her husband in the bridal-chamber. Those however who have mated in the Bridal-
Chamber will no longer be separated. Because of this, Eve separated from Adambecause she did not
mate with him in the Bridal-Chamber. (Th 11/22, Ph 30/76; or life separated from mankind)
87. The soul of Adam came into being by a Spirit, whose mate is the [Christ. The Spirit] bestowed upon
(Adam) is his Mother, and was given to him in his soul. [...] (Yet) because he had [not yet] been mated
in the Logos, the dominant powers bewitched him. [... Yet those who] mate with the [Sacred] Spirit [...]
(in) secret [...] are invited individually [...] to the Bridal-Chamber, in order that [...] they shall be mated.
(=breath, Gen 2:7; see Spirit in Th Notes)

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88.Yeshua revealed [beside the (River)] Jordan the fullness of the Sovereignty of the Heavens, which
existed before the totality. (Th 77) Moreover he was begotten () as Son, moreover he was anointed, more-
over he was atoned, moreover he atoned. (manuscript dittography here omitted)
89. If it is appropriate to tell a mystery, the Father of the totality mated with the Virgin who had come
downand a fire shone for him on that day. He revealed the power of the Bridal-Chamber. (Ph 64) Thus
his body came into being on that day. He came forth in the Bridal-Chamber as one who has issued from
the Bridegroom with the Bride. This is how Yeshua established the totality for himself in his heart. And
thru these, it is appropriate for each one of the Disciples to enter into his repose. (anti-Gnostic!; the
Bridegroom with the Bride; Odes of St Solomon, 33:5-8There stood a perfect Virgin who was proclaiming:... Return oh you sons of
men, and come oh you daughters of men,... and I will enter into you.)

Adam came into being from two virginsfrom the Spirit and from the virgin earth. Therefore Christ
90.
was begotten from a virgin, so that the stumbling which occurred in the beginning shall be rectified. (Gen
2:7, Lk 1:26-35, Ph 18)

91.There were two trees in paradisethe one produces beasts, the other produces humans. Adam ate
from the tree that produced beasts, (and) becoming bestial he begot beasts. Because of this, (the beasts)
came to be worshiped. [... Humans] begot humans [and then] worshiped humans. [...] (asyndeton; Ph 54)
92.God created mankind, and mankind created gods. This is how it is in the worldthe men create gods
and they worship their creations. It would have been (more) appropriate for the gods to worship the
men! (Isa 44:9-20, Jer 16:20, Hab 2:18-19, Ph 54)
93. Thus is the real truth regarding the deeds of mankindthey essentially come forth thru his power.
Therefore they are called (his) abilities. His (progeny) are his sons who came forth thru (his) repose.
Because of this, his power governs in his works, yet his repose is manifest in (his) sons. And thou will
find that this penetrates unto the imagery. And this is the Mirrored Person: doing his works in his power,
yet in repose begetting his Sons. (Jn 5:19, Th 50!)
94. In this world the slaves are forced to work for the free. In the Sovereignty of the Heavens the free
shall act to serve the slaves: the Sons of the Bridal-Chamber shall serve the sons of marriage. The Sons
of the Bridal-Chamber have [a single] name among them, the repose occurs among them mutually, they
are made to have no needs. [...] (Lk 20:34-36!, Ac 4:34-35, Ph 64; asyndeton)
95.The contemplation [of the imagery is aware]ness in greatness of glory. [Truly there is immortal]ity
within those in the [Holy Bridal-Chamber, who receive] the glories of those who [are fulfilled]. (Aristotle,
Metaphysics, XII.7, 1072b.23)

96.[He who goes down] into the water (of Baptism) does not [...] go down to death, [... for] (Christ)
shall atone him [once he has come] forthnamely those who were [called to be fulfilled] in his Name.
For he says: [Thus] we shall fulfill all righteousness. (=Mt 3:15!; this is contrary to Pauls doctrine in Rom 6:3-4)
97. Those who say that first they shall die and (then) they shall arise are confused. If they do not first
receive the resurrection (while) they live, they will receive nothing (when) they die. Thus also it is
said regarding Baptism, (that) Baptism is great, (for) those who receive it shall live. (asyndeton; Jn 11:26,
Ph 22; manuscript dittography here omitted)

98.Philip the Apostle says: Joseph the Carpenter planted a grove because he needed wood for his craft.
He himself made the cross from the trees that he had planted, and his heir hung on that which he had
planted. His heir was Yeshua, yet the plant was the cross. But the tree of life is in the midst of paradise
and the olive tree, from the heart of which the Chrism came thru him of the resurrection. (anti-Gnostic; it
is not certain where the quote from Philip the Apostle ends and the comment by Philip the Evangelist begins; difficult to interpretperhaps
a parable, wherein Joseph = mankind, and Christ = the Son of Mankind; Mt 13:55, Ex 30:22-33, Dt 21:22-23, Rev/Ap 22:2)

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99.This world devours corpsesfurthermore, those who eat in it themselves die. The true (person) con-
sumes lifetherefore no one nourished in [the truth shall] die. Yeshua came from within that place, and
he brought nourishment from there. And to those whom he wished he gave their lives, so that they not
perish. (Jn 6:53, Th 11/60, Ph 15)
100. God [created] a garden-paradise. Mankind [lived in the] garden, [... but] they were not in the [...] of
God in [...] their hearts [...] given desire. [...] This garden [is the place] where it will be said to me:
[Thou may eat] this or not eat [this, according to thy] desire. This is the place (where) I shall consume
every different (thing)there, where is the tree of knowledge which slew Adam. Yet (in) this place the
tree of knowledge gave life to mankind. The Torah was the tree. It has (the) capability in itself to bes-
tow the knowledge of good and evil. It neither cured him of the evil nor preserved him in the good, but
rather it caused those who had ingested it to die. For death originated because of (the Torahs) saying:
Eat this, but do not eat (that)! (Th 113, Gen 2:16-17; Isak Dinesen, Sorrow Acre, Winters Tales: The Garden of Eden, newly
created; from every tree of which ... thou, my Adam, mayest freely eat.)

101. The Chrism is made lord over the Baptism. (Mt 3:11) For from the Chrism we are called Christic(s,
and) not because of the Baptism. And (he) was called the Christ because of the Chrism. For the Father
anointed the Son, yet the Son anointed the Apostles, yet the Apostles anointed us. (Lk 4:18, Jn 20:21-22, Ac
6:5-6!!) He who has been anointed has the totalityhe has the resurrection, the light, the cross, the
Sacred Spirit. The Father bestowed this upon him in the Bridal-Chamber (and) he received. (asyndeton;
anti-Gnostic, asyndeton)

102. The Father was in the Son, and the Son in the Father. This is the Sovereignty of the Heavens! (Jn
14:10/17:20-23, Th 113!; Juan Rulfo, Pedro Pramo: For me,... heaven is right here.)

103.Excellently did the Lord say: Some have attained the Sovereignty of the Heavens laughing, and they
came forth [rejoicing from the world]. The Christic [...] who went down into the water immediately
came forth as master over everything; because [he did not consider (the Baptism) a] game, but rather he
disdained this [changing world for] the Sovereignty of the Heavens. If he disdains (the world) and
scorns it as a game, he [shall] come forth laughing. (Ph 96)
104.Furthermore, it is thus regarding the Bread with the Chalice, and the Chrism: there is nonetheless
another (sacrament) exalted over these. (Ph 73)
105.The system began in a transgression, for he who made it had desired to make it imperishable and
immortal. He fell away and did not attain (his) ambition. For there was no imperishability of the system,
and there was no imperishability of him who has made the system. For there is no imperishability of
things but rather of the Sons, and no one can obtain imperishability except by becoming (a) Son. Yet he
who is unable to receive, how much (more) will he be unable to give! (Ph 5/49)
106.The chalice of communion contains wine (and) it contains water. It is designated as the symbol of
the blood, over which thanks are given. And it is filled with the Sacred Spirit, and it belongs to the
completely Perfected Person. Whenever we drink this, we shall receive the Perfect Person. (Mk 14:23-24, Jn
19:34, I-Jn 5:6-8; asyndeton; anti-gnostic; Gk )

107. The Living Water is a body. It is appropriate that we be clothed in the Living Person. Because of
this, (when) he comes to go down into the water he undresses himself, in order that he may be clothed
with that. (anti-Gnostic!; asyndeton; Ph 3/26)
108.A horse naturally begets a horse, a human begets (a) human, a god begets (a) god. Thus it is, regar-
ding the Bridegroom within the Bride[their Sons] came forth in the Bridal-Chamber. (The) Jews had
not derived [...] from the Greeks, [...] and [we Christics do not derive] from the Jews. (Th 43, Ph 50) [...]
And these were called [...] the chosen generation of the [Sacred Spirit]the True Man and the Son of

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Mankind and the seed of the Son of Mankind. This generation is named true in the world. This is the
place where the Sons of the Bridal-Chamber are. (asyndeton)
109.Mating occurs in this world (as) man upon woman, the place of strength (joined) with weakness.
In eternity there is something else (in) the likeness of mating, yet we call them by these (same)
(Gen 3:16)
names. Yet there are others which are exalted beyond every name which is named, and (which) trans-
cend force. For (in) the place where there is force, there are those who are superior to force. (Ph 140)
110.The one is not, and the other one isbut they are together this single unity. This is He who shall
not be able to come unto (whomever) has the carnal heart. (Ph 9; Chuang Tzu, 4th century BC China: That which is
one is one, and that which is not one is also one; he who regards all things as One, is a companion of Heaven.)

111.Is it not appropriate for all those who possess the totality to understand themselves? Some indeed,
who do not understand themselves, shall not enjoy those (things) which they have. Yet those who have
understood themselves shall enjoy them. (Ecc 6:1-2, Th 2/67)
112. Not only shall they be unable to seize the perfected person, but they shall be unable (even) to see
him. For if they see him, they will seize him. In no other manner will one be able to be begotten of Him
in this grace, unless he is clothed in the Perfect Light and Perfect Light is upon him. [Thus clad], he
shall go [forth from the world]. This is the perfected [Son of the Bridal-Chamber]. (Mt 5:48, Ph 85)
113.[It is appropriate] that we be made to become [perfected persons] before we come forth [from the
world]. (Mt 5:48) Whoever has received everything [without being made master] of these places, will [not
be able to master] that place; but rather he shall [go] forth to the transition as imperfect. Only Yeshua
knows the destiny of this one. (Mt 25:31-46, Jn 8:7, Ph 10/68/112)
114.The Saint is entirely holy, including his body. For if he receives the bread he will sanctify it, or the
chalice, or anything else he receives he purifies. And how will he not purify the body also? (Jn 20:27; this
is the Eucharist: Mk 14:22-24; Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass: Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch; empha-
tically anti-Gnostic!)

115. Yeshua poured death away by perfecting the water of Baptism. Because of this, we indeed are sent
down into the wateryet not down unto death, (but rather) in order that we be poured away from the
spirit of the world. Whenever that blows, its winter occurs; (but) when the Sacred Spirit breathes, the
summer comes. (Mt 28:19, Ph 7/96/103; this is contrary to Pauls doctrine in Rom 6:3-4; asyndeton)
116. Whoever recognizes the truth is liberated. Yet he who is liberated does not transgress, for the trans-
gressor is the slave of the transgression. (=Jn 8:32-36!, I-Jn 3:9) The Mother is the truth, yet the conjoining
is the recognition. The world calls liberated those to whom it is given not to transgress. The recognition
of the truth exalts the hearts of these to whom it is given not to transgress. This is what liberates them
and exalts them over the whole place. Yet love is inspirational. He however who has been liberated thru
recognition is enslaved by love for these who have not yet been able to sustain being liberated by recog-
nition. Yet recognition makes them competent, which liberates them.
117.Love [does not take] anything, for how [(can) it take anything when everything] belongs to it? It
does not [say This is mine] or (That) is mine, [but rather it says] They are thine. (Job 41:11, Lk 6:30)
118. Spiritual love is [truly] wine with fragrance; all those who are anointed with it enjoy it. As long as
the anointed remain, those (also) enjoy it who stand beside them. (But) if they who are anointed with the
Chrism cease evangelizing them (and) depart, (then) those who are not anointed (but) only stand along-
side remain still in their (own) miasma. The Samaritan gave nothing to the wounded (man) except wine
with ointmentand he healed the blows, inasmuch as love atones for a multitude of transgressions.
(asyndeton; Lk 10:30-37, Th 24, =Pro 10:12I-Pet 4:8)

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119. Those whom the woman will beget resemble him whom she loves. If (it is) her husband, they
resemble her husband; if it is an adulterer, they resemble the adulterer. Often, if there is (a) woman
(who) lays with her husband by compulsion, yet her heart is with the adulterer and she is accustomed to
mate with him (also, then) he whom she bears in giving birth resembles the adulterer. Yet you who are
with the Son of Godlove not the world but rather love the Lord, so that those who shall be begotten
not come to resemble the world, but rather will come to resemble the Lord. (Ex 20:14, Lev 20:10, II-Sam 11:1-
5/12:1-10, Mt 5:27-28+32, Mk 7:21, Jn 8:3-11)

120. The human naturally unites with the human, the horse unites with the horse, the donkey unites with
the donkey; the species naturally unite with their like-species. Thus the Spirit naturally unites with the
Spirit, and the Logos mates with the Logos, [and the] Light mates [with the Light. If thou] become
human, (then) [mankind shall] love thee; if thou become [spiritual], (then) the Spirit shall mate with
thee; if thou become rational, (then) the Logos shall unite with thee; if thou become enlightened, (then)
the Light shall mate with thee; if thou transcend, (then) the Transcendental shall repose upon thee. (But)
if thou are accustomed to become (like a) horse or donkey or calf or dog or sheep or other of the animals
(which are) outside and inferior, (then) neither mankind nor the Spirit nor the Logos nor the Light nor
those above nor those within shall be able to love thee. They shall not be able to repose in thee, and thy
heritage shall not be among them. (Ph 108, Sir 13:16; Eccl [Ben Sirach] 13:19-20, Every beast loves its like; so also every
person him that is nearest to himself. All flesh shall consort with the like to itself, and every person shall associate himself to his like.)

121.He who is enslaved without his volition will be able to be freed. He who has been liberated by the
grace of his master, and has sold himself (back) into slavery, shall no longer be able to be freed. (Ex 21:5-6
[but also Lev 25:10!], Ph 116)

122. The cultivation in the world is thru four modes(crops) are gathered into the barn thru soil and
water and wind and light. And the cultivation by God is likewise thru four: thru trust and expectation
and compassion and recognition. Our soil is the trust in which we take root; the water is the expectation
thru which we are nourished; the wind is the compassion thru which we grow; yet the light is the recog-
nition thru which we are ripened. (Th 25, Ph 116; Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary: Manure and rain and sun and wind bring
on the flowers; Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, V.3: An ignorant man has sought; and having sought, he finds the teacher; and finding,
has believed; and believing, has hoped; and henceforward, having loved, is assimilated to what was lovedsuch is the method Socrates
shows.)

123.Grace causes [the humble soul of the] person of earth to be made sovereign [over ...] what is above
the sky. They [received] thru [Him who] is blest; this one by his [Logos truly uplifts] their souls. (Th
2!/11!)

124. This is Yeshua the Christhe beguiled the entire place and did not burden anyone. Therefore, blest
is this perfected person of this kind; for this one is the Logos. (Ph 29)
125.Ask us concerning him, inasmuch as this (attempt to portray) him uprightly is difficult. How shall
we be able to succeed in this great (task)? (Th 13!; Csar Vallejo, A Man Passes By, Human Poems: How to write, after-
ward, of the Infinite?)

126. How will he bestow repose on everyone? First of all, it is not appropriate to aggrieve anyone
whether great or small, whether unbeliever or believer. Then, to provide repose for those who rest
among the good. There are some whose privilege it is to provide repose for those who are ideal. He who
does good cannot of himself give repose to these, for he does not come of his (own) volition. Yet neither
can he aggrieve them, for he does not oppress them. But he who is ideal sometimes grieves themnot
that he is thus (grievous), but rather it is their (own) wickedness which causes them grief. He who is
natural gives joy to him who is goodyet from this some grieve terribly. (Pro 21:15, Th 90)
127. A householder acquired everythingwhether son or slave or cattle or dog or swine, whether wheat

38
or barley or straw or hay or [bones] or meat (or) acorns. Yet he (was) wise and knew the food of each
[one]. Before the sons he indeed set bread with [olive-oil and meat; before] the slaves he set castor-oil
with grain; and before the cattle [he set barley] with straw and hay; to the dogs he cast bones; yet before
[the swine] he threw acorns and crusts of bread. So it is with the Disciple of Godif he is wise, he is
perceptive about the Discipleship. The bodily forms will not deceive him, but rather he will then observe
the disposition of the soul of each one in order to speak with him. In the world there are many animals
made in human formthese he is accustomed to recognize. To the swine indeed he will throw acorns;
yet to the cattle he will cast barley with straw and hay; to the dogs he will cast bones; to the slaves he
will give the elementary; to the Sons he will present the perfect. (the Torah; the Gospel; Mk 5:9-12!/7:27!, Mt
7:6!, Jn 7:24!, Th 93, Ph 79!; NB five spiritual levels and/or stages are here stipulated)

128.There is the Son of Mankind and there is the Grandson of Mankind. The Lord is the Son of Man-
kind, and the Grandson of Mankind is he who is created thru the Son of Mankind. The Son of Mankind
received from God the ability to create; (God alone) has the ability to beget. (Th 101)
129. That which is created is a creature, that which is begotten is a progeny. A creature cannot beget,
(but) a progeny can create. Yet they say that the creature begets. However, his progeny is a creature.
Therefore (a persons) progeny are not his sons, but rather they are (Sons) of [God]. (asyndeton; Ecc 11:5, Isa
29:23, Jn 1:12-13/3:3, Ph 33; Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet: Your children are not your children; they are the sons and daughters of Lifes
longing for itself. They come through you but not from you; and though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.)

130.He who creates works manifestly, and he himself also is manifest; he who begets [acts] in [secret],
and he [hides himself from] the imagery [of others]. (Thus also) the Creator [indeed] creates visibly, yet
in begetting [begets the] Sons in secret. (God as masculine creates the observable Universe without, God as feminine begets
us from within; see Ph 93 and The Maternal Spirit)

131. No [one will be able] to know on what day [the man] and the woman mate with each other, except
themselves only. For marriage in the world is a sacrament for those who have taken a spouse. If the mar-
riage of impurity (!) is hidden, how much more is the Immaculate Marriage a true sacrament! (Ph 64/73) It
is not carnal but rather pure, it is not lustful but rather compassionate, it is not of the darkness or the
night but rather of the day and the Light. A marriage which is exhibited becomes adultery; and the bride
has committed adultery not only if she receives the sperm of another man, but even if she escapes from
the bedroom and is seen. Let her display herself only to her father and her mother and the friend of the
bridegroom (Jn 3:29/15:14-15) and the sons of the bridegroom! To these it is given to enter daily into the
bridal-chamber. Yet as for the others, let them be made to yearn even to hear her voice and to enjoy
(her) fragrance, and let them feed like the dogs from the crumbs that fall from the table! (Those) being
from the Bridegroom within the Bride belong in the Bridal-Chamber. No one will be able to behold the
Bridegroom with the Bride unless he becomes this. (=Mk 7:27-28!; lit. prostitution)
132.When Abraham had [rejoiced] at seeing what he was to see, he circumcised the flesh of the fore-
skinshowing us that it is appropriate to renounce the flesh [which pertains to] this world. (anti-Gnostic;
Gen 17:9-14, Dt 10:6, Jn 8:56, Th 53)

133. [... As long as] the entrails of the person are enclosed, the person lives. If his entrails are exposed
(and) he is disemboweled, the person will die. So also with the tree: it naturally sprouts and thrives
while its root is covered, (but) if its root is exposed the tree withers. Thus it is with everything begotten
in the world, not only with the manifest but also with the covert. For as long as the root of evil is hidden,
it is strong; yet if it is recognized it is destroyed (and) when it is exposed it perishes. This is why the
Logos (John the Baptist!) says Already the ax has reached the root of the trees! (=Mt 3:10!) It will not
(merely) chop off, for that which is chopped off naturally sprouts again. But rather the ax delves down
into the ground (and) uproots. Yet Yeshua pulled up the root of the entire place, but the others (had
done so) only in part. Ourselves alsolet each one of us delve down to the root of the evil that is within

39
him (and) tear out its root from his own heart! Yet it will be uprooted if we but recognize it. But if we
are unaware of it, it takes root within us and produces its fruits in our hearts. It makes itself master over
us (and) we are made into its slaves. We are taken captive, which coerces us into doing what we do not
want (and) into [not] doing what we do want. It is potent until we recognize it. While it is subliminal, it
indeed impels. (Job 14:7-9, Pro 20:9; asyndeton; Aeschylus, Agamemnon, 967: When the root lives on, the new leaves come back;
Charles Dickens, Great Expectations: I was too cowardly to do what I knew to be right, as I had been too cowardly to avoid doing what I
knew to be wrong.)

134. Ignorance is the mother of [all evil (Lk 23:34!, Ac 3:17); and] ignorance (itself) results from [confusion].
Those things originating from [ignorance] neither were nor [are] nor shall be [among the truthful. Yet]
they shall be perfected when the entire truth is revealed. For the truth is like ignoranceif it is hidden it
reposes within itself, yet if it is revealed it is recognized. (The truth) is glorious in that it prevails over
ignorance and liberates from confusion. The Logos says You shall know the truth (and) the truth will
set you free! (=Jn 8:32!) Ignorance enslaves (but) recognition is freedom. By recognizing the truth, we
shall find the fruits of the truth within our hearts. By mating with it, we shall receive our fulfillment.
(asyndeton)

135.At present we have the manifestation of creation. They say that (visible beings) are the powerful
which are honorable, yet the invisible are the weak which are contemptible. (But) the truth is that visible
beings are thus weak and inferior, whereas the invisible are the powerful and honorable. (St Bonaventure, De
Plantatione Paradisi, I.t.v.575: The wisdom of the invisible God cannot become known to us except by taking the form of the visible
things with which we are familiar; Sren Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript: An omnipresent being should be recognizable
precisely by being invisible; Antoine de Saint-Exupry, The Little Prince: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is
essential is invisible to the eye; the I Ching, Hexagram 50, The Ritual Vessel: All that is visible must grow beyond itself, extend into the
realm of the invisible.)

136. Yet the mysteries of the truth are revealed, composed in symbolic imagery. (Ph 72) But the Bedroom
is hiddenit is the Saint within the Holiness. (Ph 82/83)
137.The veil (of the Temple) indeed at first concealed how God governs the creation. Yet (once) the veil
was torn and the things within were revealed, then this house was to be forsaken (and) desolate, yet
moreover to be destroyed. Yet the entire Divinity departed from these places (which are) not within the
holies of the holies, for (the Divinity) was not (there) able to unite with the Light nor unite with the
flawless fullness. But rather it was to be under the wings of the cross [and in] its arms. (asyndeton; anti-
Gnostic; Ex 26:31-34, Mt 27:51/23:38/24:2, Ph 84; this entry must be dated after 70 AD)

138. This ark shall be salvation for us when the cataclysm of water has overwhelmed them. (Gen 6-9, Pro
10:25, Lk 17:22-37)

139.If some are in the tribe of the priesthood, these shall be permitted to enter within the veil (of the
Temple) with the High Priest. Therefore the veil was not torn at the top only, else it would have been
opened only for those who are above; nor was it torn at the bottom only, else it would have been
revealed only to those who are below. But rather it was torn from the top to the bottom. Those who are
above opened to us who are below, in order that we shall enter into the secret of the truth. (Num 18:7, Mk
15:38, Ph 84/137)

140. This strengthening is truly excellent. Yet we shall enter therein by means of despised symbols and
weaknesses. They are indeed humble in the presence of the perfect glory. There is glory that surpasses
glory, there is power which surpasses power. (Ph 109) Therefore the perfect have opened to us with the
secrets of the truth. Moreover, the Saints of the holinesses have been revealed, and the Bedroom has
invited us within. (asyndeton; Ph 83/137)
141.As long as the evil indeed is covert, it (remains) potential, not yet truly purged from the midst of the
seed of the Sacred Spirit. (Thus) they are enslaved by the oppression. (Th 45, Ph 133) Yet when the Perfect

40
Light is revealed, then it will pour forth upon everyone and all those within it shall receive the Chrism.
Then the slaves shall be freed [and] the captives atoned. (Ps 19:12)
142. [Every] plant which my heavenly Father has not sown [shall be] rooted out. (=Mt 15:13!) Those who
are separated shall be mated (and) [the empty] shall be filled. (Th 40) Everyone who [enters] the Bed-
room shall be born in the Light. For they [are not begotten] in the manner of the marriages which we [do
not] see, (which) are enacted by night, the fire (of which) [flares] in the dark (and then) is extinguished.
Yet rather the Sacraments of this Marriage are consummated in the day and the light. Neither that day
nor its light ever sets. (multiple asyndeta; Ph 73/131, Tr 33)
143. If someone becomes a Son of the Bridal-Chamber, he shall receive the Light. If one does not receive
it in these places, he will not be able to obtain it in the other place. He who has received that Light shall
not be seen, nor shall they be able to seize him; nor shall anyone be able to disturb this one of this
nature, even if he socializes in the world. And furthermore, (when) he leaves the world he has already
received the truth via the imagery. The world has become eternity, because the fullness is for him the
eternal. And it is thus revealed to him individuallynot hidden in the darkness (or) the night, but rather
hidden in a Perfect Day and a Holy Light. (Ph 85)
The Gospel according to Philip

Notes to Philip

The reader is urged to consult the hyperlinear (www.metalog.org/files/ph_interlin.html), as ( a) the text is

conceptually complex and (b) the papyrus is somewhat deterioratedthus, any interpretation must necessarily
remain provisional. The translation itself is concordant with that of Thomas, and therefore words discussed in the
notes there are not repeated here. Complete references are listed for selected terms; otherwise only the first occur-
rence is given. The three phases of this translation: ( 1) www.metalog.org/files/till/interlin/till-01.jpg [1990], (2)
www.metalog.org/files/ph_interlin/philip_2.gif [2004], (3) www.metalog.org/files/ph_interlin/ph002.html [2008].

Abraham (132): Heb Mhrb) (father of many); the original Heb patriarch (Gen 11:26).
Aeon (7): Copt ene6 (C057a) = Gk (unconditional); designates either a specific limited era of time, or a
trans-temporal eternitynot only, as generally translated, the latter.
Angel (21/29/30/56/59/65): Gk = Heb K)lm (malak: emissary, messenger); here the pure ego of the
individual, born of God, who observes the images; Mt 18:10, Lk 20:36, Th 88; see Angel, Image and Symbol.
Anointed (20a): Heb xy#m (mashiakh: Messiah) = Gk ; in ancient Israel priests, prophets and
monarchs were installed by crowning with an olive-oil ointment (Ex 29:7, I-Ki 19:16, II-Sam 2:4hence Lk
4:18, Mt 26:6-7); see Gen 28:18, Ex 30:22-33.
Apostle (18): Gk (sent forth); one who is commissioned; compare Disciple.
Apostolic (18): Gk (follower of the Apostles).
Aramaic (20): Semitic language of the ancient world, dated by extra-Biblical records to 3000 BC, source of
Hebrew square-letter alphabet, the language of Abraham (Dt 26:5) as well as of Christ in his ministry (Mk 5:41/
7:34/15:34, Mt 27:46); Gen 22:20-21, II-Ki 18:26, Isa 36:11.
Atone (8/51/73/82/88/96/141): Copt swte (C362a) = Gk = Heb rpk (kpr: cover, substitute; as in Yom
Kippur: Day of Atonement); personal sacrifice or suffering, by the guilty or by the innocent, which serves to
reconcile the guilty (Lev 1:1-4/16:1-34, Isa 53, Mt 5:10-12/20:28, Th 58/68/69a); see Sacrament and Tr 1; Anne
Frank, Diary: Maybe our religion will teach the world and all the people in it about goodness, and thats the
reason, the only reason, we have to suffer.
Authority (13): Gk (original-being); an official within society; see World-System in Th Notes.
Baptism (47/73/81/82/96/97/101/115): Gk (immersion); the sacrament of spiritual cleansing re the
Torah; see Sacrament, Isa 1:16-17, Mk 1:4, Mt 28:19, Ac 1:22, Tr 37, John the Baptist in Th Notes.
Bedroom (131/136/140/142): Gk ; see also Bridal-Chamber.

41
 Bridal-Chamber (65/71/72/73/82/94/95/101/108/112/131/143): see Bridal-Chamber in Th Notes; 79/84/86/87/89:
Gk ); see also Bedroom, Sacrament, and Ph 64 (the Sacrament of Marriage, the Pure Mating), 85 (the
Sacrament of the Mating), 104/109/131 (the Immaculate Marriage), 142 (the Sacraments of this Marriage).
Cain (46): Heb Nyq (product and hence possession); that is, my or our product rather than product of God,
perhaps indicating that the original transgression of humans consisted in claiming (Godlike) to create and hence
to judge their offspring; Gen 2:15-4:1, Ecc 11:5!see Ph 93/129, as well as Theogenesis.
Chrism (28/51/52/71/72/73/80/81/88/98/101/118/141): Gk (unguent) = Copt ne6 (C240b), so2n (C388b),
tw6s (C461b); the sacrament of anointing with olive oil, christification; see Anointed, Sacrament, Tr 41.
Christ (4): Gk ; see Anointed.
Christic (6/14/48/53/63/72/101/103/108): Gk (follower of Christ) = Heb Messianic (follower of the
Messiah).
Communion (106): Copt 4lhl (C559a); communicating with God, prayer: The Shorter Oxford English Dic-
tionary, 5th edition, CD-ROM version 2.0: Communion: 3. Intimate mental or spiritual communing, silent prayer
see Mt 6:6; (NB Lk 18:1, enjoins praying continually).
Companion (36/59): Gk (companion, partner; NB plural at Lk 5:10!); see Mate; the feminine of
this Gk word does not mean wife (see www.metalog.org/files/gk.jpg); moreover, contrary to the claim made in
the popular novel The Da Vinci Code (2003), neither does the underlying Aramaic, rbx (khaver: female com-
panion), mean spouse (see www.metalog.org/files/aram.jpg); regarding Leonardos famous painting, in his own
highly secretive Notebooks, I.665 Notes on the Last Supper (www.metalog.org/files/leonardo.html), he unambi-
guously refers to that figure in his famous painting as a male!; see the video presentation: www.metalog.org/files/
dvcode_1.wmv.
Complexion (58): Gk (the color of the skin) = Sanskrit varna (complexion, thus caste!).
Confusion (10/18/22/74b/97/134): Gk (straying; hence planet as a celestial body which appears to stray
relative to the fixed stars); see Tr 3ff.
Contemplation (95): Gk ; here meaning to behold ones imagery as Gods own manifested ima-
gination (Mt 18:10, Angel, Image and Symbol); the quote in Aristotle is: ,
Contemplation [of the intelligible () is] the most delightful and excellent.
Convocation (10): Gk (called-out); the assembly of those called forth from the world (Mt
16:18/18:15-20); this had been the term for the Athenian Assembly; Ps 22:22.
Defilement (18/64/65): Copt `w6m (C797b) = Gk = Heb )m+ (tame); ritual uncleanness (Lev 15), as
opposed to transgression of the Torah (Lev 19)a vital distinction; see Torah, compare Transgression in Th
Notes.
Disciple (19): Gk (learner; a word notably absent from Pauls Epistles); in Attic Gk, used of the
pupils of the philosophers and rhetoricians, as in Platos Protagoras, 315A; compare Apostle.
Era (70): see Aeon.
Eternal (9/10/109/143): see Aeon.
Eucharist (30/57/73/106/114): Gk (well-joying, thanksgiving); the sacrament of bread and wine;
see Sacrament (Lk 22:14-20).
Eve (76): Heb hwx (living; Gen 3:20); see Cain and Female.
Expectation (122): Gk = Heb hwqt (tiqvah); not mere hoping or wishing, but rather anticipation
Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, II.6: Hope is the expectation of the possession of good; necessarily, then, is
expectation founded on faith; Isa 42:9, Jn 16:13!
Female (18): Copt s6ime (C385a); here emphasizing the Sacred Spirit as our Mother, as in Isa 49:15/66:13,
Lk 13:34; see Spirit and The Maternal Spirit.
Hebrew (1/6/18/50): Heb rb( (eber: cross over, beyond, passer-by, transient; Th 42!); the lineage of Shem
and especially of Abraham (Gen 10:21/14:13/16:15thus Ishmael also was a Hebrew).
Heir (98): Copt 2ro2 (C831b: seed, sperm); in light of Ph 18, and as with Gk in Ph 108, this term
must here be a metaphor for heir rather than meaning literally progeny.
Image/Imagery (24n/26n/30/47/72/84/93/95/130/136/143): see Th Notes.
Inequality (65): Copt at.twt (P063d/C438a: not in agreement, not conjoined); see Union and Th 61b!
Ionian (20): Gk (violet) = Heb Nyy/Nwy (yayin/yavan: wine); Hebrew name for the Greeks (Gen 10:2-5,
Dan 8:21); the coast of Asia Minor (now Turkey) was where Greeks met the ancient middle-eastern civilizations,
acquiring the alphabet via the Semitic-speaking Phoenicians ( : purpleGk name for the Canaanites [Heb:

42
merchants] of Gen 9:18-10:19/12:5-7, I-Ki 5, Ezek 27-28; cp. Mt 15:22 with Mk 7:26; according to Herodotus
Histories, I, Thales of Miletusthe first pre-Socraticwas a Phoenician/Canaanite).
Jerusalem (82): Heb Myl#wry (foundations/city of peace); note that Heb hry (yarah: directive) is the root of
both Jeru- and Torah.
Jordan (88): Heb Ndry (descender); the river of the Holy Land, in the northern extension of Africas Great
Rift Valley; NB apparently the River Pishon of Gen 2:11(!); thus, could the Flood have swept down thru the
Jordan Rift Valley?!topologically more intelligible, except for the puzzling Ararat (which, however, means
merely sacred/high land); this would of course place all of Gen 2-9 in the Jordan Valley, with Gen 10 the first
human (linguistic?!) dispersion, and Gen 11 thereafter in Mesopotamia.
Joseph the Craftsman (98): Joseph = Heb Pswy (addition); craftsman = Copt 6am4e (C546b), Gk
(Mt 13:55); husband of the Virgin Mariam; notably silent thruout the Gospels; see Ph 18.
Levi (58): Heb ywl (join, convert); the OT patriarch of the priestly line; Ph 58 could thus be interpreted: The
Lord went into the dyeworks of conversion [or, of the priesthood].... (Isa 14:1, Zech 2:11).
Magdalene (36/59): Heb ldgm (migdal: watchtower) Pro 18:10, Isa 5:1-2, Mic 4:8, Lk 8:2, Jn 20:1-18; it
should be noted that in Jn 20:17 means not merely touch, cling to but also kindle, ignite (as in Lk 8:16)
and thus caress, as also in Lk 7:39.
Mate (30/36/64/65/80/86/87/89/119/120/131/134/142): Copt 6wtr (C726b) = Gk (common-being); sexual
union; cp. Israelite concubinage, non-marital sexual union (in which any offspring do not inherit), as Abraham
with Hagar and Ketura (Gen 16 & 25:1-6) or King David (II-Sam 15:16)forbidden neither by the Torah nor by
Christ (Ex 20:14, Lev 20:10, Mt 5:28 refer only to the wife of another man, not to an unmarried woman or a
widow); see Companion, Prostitution, Sacrament and Unite.
Measurement (51): Heb lq#-m (m-shql: of-shekel/weighing) is apparently here being punned with xy#m
(mashiakh: Messiah).
Messiah (20a): Heb xy#m (mashiakh); see Anointed.
Messianic (6): Heb Messiah with Gk suffix - (thus follower of the Messiah); see Christic.
Mirrored (65/93): Gk : imaged; see Image in Th Notes.
Mode (122): Gk ; the term for the Platonic forms (often as ), as well as the Aristotelian species;
note also the evident allusion to the four primary elements of ancient physics: earth, water, air and fire (recast in
modern formulation as the four basic states of matter: solid, liquid, gas and plasma).
Mystery (21/64/73/85/89/104/131/136/142): Gk ; secret or sacrament, a term from the ancient Medi-
terranean mystery religions; see Sacrament, Mk 4:11, Th 62, Tr 5/45.
Nationalist (4): Heb ywg (goy: corpse!) = Gk ; non-Israelite, pagan, Gentile, as in Ps 2, Mt 18:17/
20:25/24:9, Ac 4:25-26.
Natural (126): see Vintage/Kind/Natural in Th Notes.
Nazarene (20b): Heb of Nazareth ( NT Gk spelling , as in Mk 1:24); to be carefully distin-
guished from:
Nazirite (51): Heb ryzn (nazir: crowned, consecrated; LXX and NT Gk spelling , as in Num 6:1-8
LXX, Jud 13:5Mt 2:23); Hebrew holy man or woman ( 1) with uncut hair, ( 2) abstaining from products of the
grapevine, and (3) avoiding corpsesthe latter two rules of which Christ implicitly abrogated (Lk 7:11-17/
22:17-18).
Novice (1): Gk (proselyte, toward-comer); a Torah convert (Num 9:14, Tob 1:8, Mt 23:15, Ac
2:10) such as St Nicholas of Antioch (Santa Claus, the first Gentile Disciple!) at Ac 6:5; A proselyte is a full
Jew: Abraham Chill, Biblio. 35.
Paradise (15): Gk , a term introduced into Gk by Xenophon, from Sanskrit paradesa (garden)
via Persian pardes (park); see Gen 2:8 LXX where it translates the Heb Ng (gan, garden), Lk 23:43!
Patrimony (64): attribution of the begetting of children to human parents rather than directly to God;
matrimonypatrimony (or marriageinheritance) signifies mutual logical entailment, as in Gen 25:5-6 and
also laws 170-71 of the Code of Hammurabi; Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace: An illegitimate son cannot inherit;
see Cain, Dt 14:1, Hos 1:10, Mt 23:8-9, Lk 20:34-36, Jn 1:12-13/11:52, Th 105 , as well as The Maternal Spirit and
Theogenesis.
Paul (25/96/115): Latin small; the supposed Apostle (but see The Paul Paradox); remarkably, Mt 5:19 can
thus be read Whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments [much less all of them, as in Rom 7:6!] ...

43
shall be called Paul (i.e. small) in the Kingdom of Heaven.
Perfect (15): Gk (completed); it is essential to note that Biblical morality exhibits a three-valued
rather than a binary logic: (1) evil/wrong [in violation of the Torah], ( 2) good/right [in accordance with the
Torah], and (3) perfect [in accordance with the M essiah]; see Mt 5:48/19:16-21, T.P. Brown, God and the
Good (Religious Studies, 1967: www.metalog.org/files/tpb/god.g.html).
Philip The Apostle (98): (Philip = Gk : friend of horses) Mk 3:18, Jn 1:43-46/
12:21/14:8; NB distinct from:
Philip The Evangelist (Colophon): Ac 6:1-6/8:4-40/21:8-14!; prominent early Disciple, one of the Seven and
author of this text.
Prostitution (131): Gk (from : to sell) does not mean fornication (non-adulterous sexual
relations outside of marriage, including importantly concubinage [Heb #glp, pilegesh] as in Gen 16:3/25:6), but
rather prostitution (cultic or commercial sexual relations, as in porno-graphy); Gen 38, Josh 2, Pro 6:26; see
Mk 7:21!!, Th 105; prostitution is forbidden by Dt 23:17 (cultic) & Lev 19:29 (commercial)note that the blame
falls solely on her parents, her procurer and her clients, and not on the prostitute herself, who is a victim , thus Mt
21:31; NB using eroticism in advertising is commercial prostitution; Bruce Malina, Does PORNEIA mean
Fornication?, Novum Testamentum, 1972, notes that there is no evidence in traditional or contemporary usage of
the word porneia that takes it to mean pre-betrothal, pre-marital, heterosexual intercourse of a non-cultic or non-
commercial nature, i.e. what we call fornication today; whereas what makes a given line of conduct ...
unlawful, is that it is expressly prohibited by the Torah.... In no case is pre-betrothal, non-commercial, non-cultic
heterosexual intercourse (what is commonly called fornication today) prohibited! As in the present case of Ph
131, as well as Mt 5:32, the term could by extension also be used for other sexual relations explicitly
prohibited by the Torah, such as incest, male homosexuality or adultery (i.e. infidelity by a wife monoandry
being one of the females punishments at Gen 3:18); see Mate, Gen 25:1-6, II-Sam 3:2-5/5:13/15:16, Mt 5:32, Jn
8:2-11. (as importantly and doubtless intentionally mistranslated at Mk 7:21 in Jeromes Latin Vulgate [405 AD],
as well as in William Tyndales English NT [1525]whereas Martin Luthers German NT [1522] has it translated
correctly as harlotry; www.metalog.org/files/malina.html)
Rebirth (72): Copt `po n-.ke.sop (birth another time: C778b/090b/349b) ! Gk (generation
from above [up-place]; the Gk can mean either birth from above or birth again; compare Jn 3:3 with 3:31).
Recognition (13/116/122/127/133/134): see Th Notes.
Restoration (72): Gk (from-down-stand), as in Ac 1:6/3:21in the secular papyri this term
is used for the repair of buildings, returning estates to their rightful owners and balancing accounts.
Sacrament (64/73/85/104/131/142): see Mystery and Ph 127; Ph 73 gives a sequential and hierarchical list of
five Sacraments: (1) Baptism [moral cleansing re the Torah]; ( 2) Chrism [the Messianic Discipleship]; ( 3) Eu-
charist [the communal meal, commemorating Yeshuas sacrifice]; ( 4) Atonement [suffering for the salvation of
others: empathy, persecution]; and ( 5) Holy Bridal-Chamber [uniting of the male with the female Disciples, to
celebrate their eternal birth thru the mating of the Father with the Sacred Spirit].
Sacred Spirit (6): see Spirit and Sacred Spirit in Th Notes.
Savior (59): Gk = Copt nou6m (C243b) = Heb (#y (ysha); see Yeshua in Th Notes, Tr 1.
Symbol (72/74a/106/136/140): Gk (type, alphabetical letter, pattern, model, general idea).
Torah (100): Heb hrwt (arrow, directive); the 613 commandments or mitzvot of the OT Law, also specifi-
cally the five books of Moses (GenDt); Ps 9:7-10, Mal 4:4, Mt 5:17-19/23:23, Lk 16:31, Tr 36 ; consider: in what
script was the Decalogue written at Sinai?regarding the origin of the Semitic alphabet; see Baptism and Per-
fect, also Abraham Chill, Biblio. 35.
Transition (68): Copt mhte (C190b) = Gk (middle); between alternatives, neither the one nor the
other (Rev/Ap 3:16!); see Wickedness 12 in Th Notes.
Trust (4/122): Gk (faith); not mere factual opinion, but rather personal confidence in someone or
something.
Union/Unite (65/116/120/137): Copt tw6 (C438a: combine or couple, copulate); NB first Mt 19:12 (celibacy) in
the context of the previous four Sacraments, and only then the fifth Sacrament! (Ph 73); see Companion, Mate
and Sacrament.
Wisdom (39/40/43/59): Gk = Aram tmkx (khokmt, Ex 35:35); see Tr 16/30/34, Philosopher in Th
Notes.

44
1. The Gospel of Truth is joy for those who have received from the Father of truth the gift of recog-
nizing him, thru the power of the Meaning who comes forth from the fullness which is in the thought
and mind of the Father. This is he who is called the Saviorthat being the name of the task which he is
to do for the atonement of those who had been unacquainted with the Name of the Father. (Mt 1:21, Jn 17,
Ac 4:12; Logos)

2. Now, the Gospel is the revelation of the hopeful, it is the finding of themselves by those who seek
him. For since the totality were searching for him from whom they came forthand the totality were
within him, the Inconceivable Incomprehensible, he who exists beyond all thoughthence unacquain-
tance with the Father caused anxiety and fear. Then the anxiety condensed like a fog so that no one
could see. (Ph 125)
3. Wherefore confusion grew strong, contriving its matter in emptiness and unacquaintance with the
truth, preparing to substitute a potent and alluring fabrication for truthfulness. But this was no humili-
ation for him, the Inconceivable Incomprehensible. For the anxiety and the amnesia and the deceitful
fabrication were nothingwhereas the established truth is immutable, imperturbable and of unadornable
beauty. Therefore despise confusion! It has no roots and was in a fog concerning the Father, preparing
labors and amnesia and fear in order thereby to entice those of the transition and take them captive. (Ph
68; Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina: That universal solution which life gives to all questions, even the most complex and insolvable: one
must live in the needs of the daythat is, forget.)

4.The amnesia of confusion was not made as a revelation, it is not the handiwork of the Father. For-
getfulness does not occur under his directive, although it does happen because of him. But rather what
exists within him is acquaintanceshipthis being revealed so that forgetfulness might dissolve and the
Father be recognized. Since amnesia occurred because the Father was not recognized, thereafter when
the Father is recognized there will be no more forgetting.
5.This is the Gospel of him who is sought, which he has revealed to those perfected thru the mercies of
the Father as the secret mystery: Yeshua the Christ! He enlightened those who were in darkness because
of forgetfulness. He illumined them. He gave them a path, and that path is the truth which he pro-
claimed.
6. Therefore confusion was enraged at him and pursued him in order to suppress and eliminate him. He
was nailed to a crossbeam, he became the fruit of recognizing the Father. Yet it did not cause those who
consumed it to perish, but rather to those who consumed it he bestowed a rejoicing at such a discovery.
For he found them in himself and they found him in themselvesthe Inconceivable Incomprehensible,
the Father, this perfect-one who created the totality, within whom the totality exists and of whom the
totality has need. For he had withheld within himself their perfection, which he had not yet conferred
upon them all. (anti-Gnostic: Dt 21:22-23, Jn 19:18, Ac 10:39; Jn 14:20)
7.The Father is not jealous, for what envy could there be between him and his members? For if the way
of this aeon had prevailed they would not have been able to come unto the Father, who retains within
himself their fulfillment and bestows it upon them as a return to himself with a recognition which is
single in perfection. It is he who ordained the totality, and the totality is within him and the totality had
need of him. It is like a person with whom some have been unacquainted, yet who desires that they re-
cognize and love him. For what did they all lack except acquaintance with the Father? (Jn 14:9; Mk 15:10!,
Th 77; Ph 21)

45
8. Thus he became a reposeful and leisurely guide in the place of instruction. The Logos came to the
midst and spoke as their appointed teacher. There approached those who considered themselves wise,
putting him to the testyet he shamed them in their vanity. They hated him because they were not truly
wise. Then after them all there also approached the little children, those who are acquainted with the
Father. Having been confirmed, they learned of the face-forms of the Father. They recognized, they
were recognized; they were glorified, they glorified. Revealed in their heart was the living book of life,
this which is inscribed in the thought and mind of the Father and which has been within his incompre-
hensibility since before the foundation of the totality. No one can take this (book) away, because it was
appointed for him who would take it and be slain. (Isa 5:21, Mt 18:10; Ps 17:15, Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, V.6:
The Son is said to be the Fathers face, being the revealer of the Fathers character to the five senses by clothing Himself with flesh; anti-
Gnostic)

9.No one of those who trusted in salvation could have become manifest unless this book had come to
the midst. This is why the merciful and faithful-oneYeshua!patiently endured the sufferings in
order to take this book, since he knew that his death is life for many. Just as the fortune of the deceased
master of the estate remains secret until his bequest is opened, so also the totality remained hidden so
long as the Father of the totality was invisiblethis-one thru whom all dimensions originate. This is
why Yeshua appeared, clothed in that book. (Rev/Ap 5:1-5; anti-Gnostic)
10. He was nailed to a crossbeam in order to publish the edict of the Father on the cross. Oh sublime
teaching, such that he humbled himself unto death while clad in eternal life! He stripped off the rags of
mortality in order to don this imperishability which none has the power to take from him. Entering into
the empty spaces of the terrors, he brought forth those who had been divested by amnesia. (Ph 75) Acting
with recognition and perfection, he proclaimed what is in the heart [of the Father, in order to] make wise
those who are to receive the teaching. Yet those who are instructed are the living, inscribed in this book
of life, who are taught about themselves and who receive themselves from the Father in again returning
to him. (anti-Gnostic: Tr 6 refs.)
11.Because the perfection of the totality is in the Father, it is requisite that they all ascend unto him.
When someone recognizes, he receives the things that are his own and gathers them to himself. For he
who is unacquainted has a lackand what he lacks is great, since what he lacks is Him who will make
him perfect. Because the perfection of the totality is in the Father, it is requisite that they all ascend unto
him. Thus each and every one receives himself. (Mt 5:48)
12. He pre-inscribed them, having prepared this gift for those who emerged from him. Those whose
names he foreknew are all called at the end. Thus someone who recognizes has his name spoken by the
Father. (I-Sam 3:10, Lk 19:5) For he whose name has not been spoken remains unacquainted. How indeed
can anyone hearken whose name has not been called? For he who remains unacquainted until the end is
a figment of forgetfulness and will vanish with it. Otherwise why indeed is there no name for those
wretches, and why do they not heed the call?
13. Thus someone with acquaintance is from above. When he is called he hears and heeds and returns to
Him who called, ascending unto him. And he discovers who it is that calls him. In recognition he does
the volition of him who called. He desires to please him, and granted repose he receives the Name of the
One. He who recognizes thus discovers from whence he has come and whither he is going. He under-
stands like someone who was intoxicated and who has shaken off his drunkenness and returned to him-
self, to set upright those things which are his own. (Th 28)
14.He has brought many back from confusion. He went before them into the spaces thru which their
hearts had migrated in going astray, due to the depth of Him who encompasses all dimensions without
himself being encompassed. It is a great wonder that they were within the Father without recognizing

46
him, and that they were able to depart unto themselves because they could neither comprehend nor
recognize him in whom they were. For thus his volition had not yet emerged from within himself. For he
revealed himself so that all his emanations would reunite with him in recognition.
15.This is acquaintance with the living book, whereby at the end he has manifested the eternal-ones as
the alphabet of his revelation. These are not vowels nor are they consonants, such that someone might
read them and think of emptiness, but rather they are the true alphabet by which those who recognize it
are themselves expressed. Each letter is a perfect thought, each letter is like a complete book written in
the alphabet of unity by the Father, who inscribes the eternal-ones so that thru his alphabet they might
recognize the Father. (Ps 139:16, Rev/Ap 1:8)
16.His wisdom meditates on the Meaninghis teaching expresses ithis acquaintance revealed ithis
dignity is crowned by ithis joy unites with ithis glory exalted ithis appearance manifested ithis
repose received ithis love embodied ithis faith embraced it. (definitively anti-Gnostic)
17. Thus the Logos of the Father comes into the totality as the fruit of his heart and the face-form of his
volition. But he supports them all, he atones them and moreover he assumes the face-form of everyone,
purifying them, bringing them backwithin the Father, within the Mother, Yeshua of infinite kindness.
The Father uncovers his bosom, which is the Sacred Spirit, revealing his secret. His secret is his Son!
(Ph 20b) Thus thru the compassions of the Father the eternal-ones recognize him. And they cease their toil
of seeking for the Father and repose in him, recognizing that this is the repose. (Odes of St Solomon, 8:17, My
own breasts I prepared for them, that they might drink my holy milk and live thereby; see also Ode 19)

18. Having replenished the deficiency, he dissolved the scheme. For the scheme is this world in which
he served as a slave, and deficiency is the place of envy and quarreling. Yet the place of the unity is
perfect. Since deficiency occurred because the Father was not recognized, thereafter when the Father is
recognized there shall be no deficiency. Just as with ignorance: when someone comes to know, the
ignorance dissolves of itselfand also as darkness dissipates when the light shinesso also deficiency
vanishes when perfection appears. Thus from that moment on there is no more scheme, but rather it
disappears in the fusion of the unity. For now their involvements are made equal at the moment when
the fusion perfects the spaces. (Th 61b)
19.Each one shall receive himself in the unification and shall be purified from multiplicity unto unity in
acquaintanceshipconsuming matter in himself like a flame, darkness with light, and death with life.
Since these things have thus happened to each one of us, it is appropriate that we think of the totality so
that the household be holy and silent for the unity. (Ps 46:10, Zech 2:13)
20.It is like some who move jars from their proper places to unsafe places, where they are broken. And
yet the master of the house suffered no loss but rather rejoiced, for those unsound jars were replaced by
these which are fully perfect. This is the judgment which has come from above, like a double-edged
sword drawn to cut this way and that as each one is judged. (Rev/Ap 1:16)
21.There came to the midst the Logos, which is in the heart of those who express it. This was not a mere
sound, but rather he became a body. A great disturbance occurred among the jarsfor lo some were
emptied, others were filled, some were supplied, others were overturned, some were cleansed, others
were broken. All of the spaces quaked and were agitated, having neither order nor stability. Confusion
was in anguish at not discerning what to dodistressed and lamenting and shearing from understanding
nothing. (anti-Gnostic; Lev 19:27+Num 6:5)
22.Then when recognition approached with all its emanations, this was the annihilation of confusion,
which was emptied into nothingness. The truth came to the midst, and all his emanations recognized and
embraced the Father in truth and united with him in a perfect power. For everyone who loves the truth

47
attaches himself to the mouth of the Father with his tongue by receiving the Sacred Spirit. (Ac 2:1-4) The
truth is the mouth of the Father, his tongue is the Sacred Spirit joined to him in truth. This is the reve-
lation of the Father and his self-manifestation to his eternal-ones. He has revealed his secret, explaining
it all. (Th Prolog/108)
23.For who is the Existent-One, except for the Father alone? All dimensions are his emanations, recog-
nized in coming forth from his heart like sons from a mature person who knows them. Each one whom
the Father begets had previously received neither form nor name. Then they were formed thru his self-
awareness. Although indeed they had been in his mind, they had not recognized him. The Father how-
ever is perfectly acquainted with all the dimensions, which are within him.
24. Whenever he wishes he manifests whomever he wishes, forming him and naming him. And in giving
him a name, he causes him to come into being. Before they came into being, these assuredly were unac-
quainted with him who fashioned them. I do not say however that those who have not yet come into
being are nothingsbut rather they preexist within him who shall intend their becoming when he
desires it, like a season yet to come. (Ph 1) Before anyone is manifest (the Father) knows what he will
bring forth. But the fruit that is not yet manifest neither recognizes nor accomplishes anything. Thus all
dimensions themselves exist within the Father who exists, from whom they come forth, and who estab-
lished them unto himself from that which is not. (Th 19)
25. Whoever lacks root also lacks fruit, but still he thinks to himself: I have become, so I shall decease
for everything that (earlier) did not (yet) exist, (later) shall no (longer) exist. What therefore does the
Father desire that such a person think about himself?: I have been like the shadows and the phantoms of
the night! When the dawn shines upon him, this person ascertains that the terror which had seized him
was nothing. They were thus unacquainted with the Father because they did not behold him. Hence there
occurred terror and turmoil and weakness and doubt and division, with many deceptions and empty fic-
tions at work thru these. (Wisd 2:2, We were born by mere chance, and hereafter we shall be as though we had never been; Vic-
tor Hugo, Les Misrables: Did I exist before my birth? No. Shall I, after my death? No.)

26. It was as if they were sunk in sleep and found themselves in troubled dreamseither fleeing some-
where, or powerlessly pursuing others, or delivering blows in brawls, or themselves suffering blows, or
falling from a high place, or sailing thru the air without wings. Sometimes it even seems as if they are
being murdered although no one pursues them, or as if they themselves are murdering their neighbors
since they are sullied by their blood. (James Joyce, Ulysses: History ... is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.)
27. Then the moment comes when those who have endured all this awaken, no longer to see all those
troublesfor they are naught. (Th 2) Such is the way of those who have cast off ignorance like sleep and
consider it to be nothing, neither considering its various events as real, but rather leaving it behind like a
dream of the night. Recognizing the Father brings the dawn! This is what each one has done, sleeping in
the time when he was unacquainted. And this is how, thus awakened, he comes to recognition. (Isa 29:7-8)
28.How good for the person who returns to himself and awakens, and blest is he whose blind eyes have
been opened! And the Spirit ran after him, resurrecting him swiftly. Extending her hand to him who was
prostrate on the ground, she lifted him up on his feet who had not yet arisen. Now the recognition which
gives understanding is thru the Father and the revelation of his Son. Once they have seen him and heard
him, he grants them to taste and to smell and to touch the beloved Son. (the five senses: emphatically anti-Gnostic!;
Th 19)

29. When he appeared, telling them about the incomprehensible Father, he breathed into them what is in
the thought of doing his volition. Many received the light and returned to him. But the materialists were
alien and did not behold his likeness nor recognize him, although he came forth incarnate in form.
Nothing obstructs his coursefor imperishability is indomitable. Moreover he proclaimed beforehand

48
that which was new, expressing what is in the heart of the Father and bringing forth the flawless Logos.
(see in Jn 20:22 [LSJ, Biblio.22: to blow in], also Gen 2:7; Odes of St Solomon, 18:19The Most High breathed into
them; anti-Gnostic, Jn 1:14)

30. Light spoke thru his mouth, and his voice gave birth to life. He gave to them the thought of wisdom,
of mercy, of salvation, of the Spirit of power from the infinity and the kindness of the Father. He abo-
lished punishment and torment, for these caused some who had need of mercy to go astray from his
face in confusion and bondage. And with power he pardoned them, and he humbled them in acquain-
tanceship. (II-Sam 23:2; Lk 23:34, Jn 8:2-11!)
31.He became a path for those who had strayed; acquaintance for the unaware; discovery for those who
seek; stability for the wavering; and immaculate purity for those who were defiled.
32. He is the shepherd who left behind the 99 sheep that were not lost, in order to go searching for this-
one which had strayed. And he rejoiced when he found it. For 99 is a number that is counted on the left
hand, which tallies it. But when 1 is added, the entire sum passes to the right hand. So it is with him who
lacks the One, which is the entire right handhe takes from the left what is deficient in order to transfer
it to the right, and thus the number becomes 100. Now, the signification within these words is the Father.
(Mt 18:12-13, Th 107)

33.Even on the Sabbath he labored for the sheep which he found fallen into the pit. He restored the
sheep to life, bringing it up from the pit, so that you Sons of heart-understanding may discern this
Sabbath on which the work of salvation must never cease, and so that you may speak from this day
which is above, which has no night, and from the perfect light which never sets. (Mt 12:11, Th 27/34, Ph 142)
34. Speak therefore from your hearts, for you are this perfect day and within you dwells this abiding
light. Speak of the truth with those who seek it, and of acquaintanceship unto those who in confusion
have transgressed. Support those who stumble, reach out your hand to the sick, feed those who are
hungry, give repose to the weary, uplift those who yearn to arise, awaken those who sleepfor you are
the wisdom that rescues! (Mt 25:31-46!)
35. Thus strength grows in action. Give heed to yourselvesbe not concerned with those other things
which you have already cast out of yourselves. Do not return to what you have regurgitated, be not
moth-eaten, be not worm-eatenfor you have already cast that out. Do not become a place for the
Devil, for you have already eliminated him. Do not reinforce those things that made you stumble and
fall. Thus is uprightness!
36. For someone who violates the Torah harms himself more than the judgment harms him. For he does
his deeds illicitly, whereas he who is righteous does his deeds for the sake of others. Do therefore the
volition of the Father, because you are from him. For the Father is kind, and things are good thru his vo-
lition. He has taken cognizance of whatever is yours, so that you may repose yourselves concerning such
thingsfor in their fruition it is recognized whose they are. (Jn 16:28, Lk 6:43-44)
37. The Sons of the Father are his fragrance, for they are from the grace of his face. Therefore the Father
loves his fragrance and manifests it everywhere. And blending it with matter, he bestows his fragrance
upon the light, and in his repose he exalts it over every likeness and every sound. For it is not the ears
that inhale the fragrance, but rather the breath has the sense of smell and draws it to oneselfand thus
is someone baptized in the fragrance of the Father. (anti-Gnostic!; spirit; Ph 118)
38.Thus he draws into harbor his original fragrance which had grown cold, unto the place from which it
came. It was something which in psychic form had become like cold water permeating loose soil, such
that those who see it think it to be dirt. Then afterward, when a warm and fragrant breeze blows, it again

49
evaporates. Thus coldness results from separation. (Th 11, Ph 86) This is why the Faithful-One cameto
abolish division and bring the warm fullness of love, so that the cold would not return but rather there
should be the unification of perfect thought. This is the Logos of the Gospel of the finding of the fullness
by those who await the salvation which comes from on high. Prolonged is the hope of those who await
those whose likeness is the light which contains no shadowat that time when the fullness finally
comes. (II-Pet 3:3-13, Ph 85/112)
39. The deficiency of matter did not originate thru the infinity of the Father, who came in the time of
inadequacyalthough no one could predict that the indestructible would arrive in this manner. But the
profundity of the Father abounded, and the thought of confusion was not with him. It is a topic for
falling prostrate, it is a reposeful topicto be set upright on ones feet, in being found by This-One who
came to bring him back. For the return is called: Metanoia! (Mk 1:4+15, Tr 28)
40. This is why imperishability breathed forthto seek after the transgressor so that he might have
repose. For to forgive is to remain behind with the light, the Logos of the fullness, in the deficiency.
Thus the physician hastens to the place where there is illness, for this is his hearts desire. But he who
has a lack cannot hide it from him who possesses what he needs. Thus the fullness, which has no defi-
ciency, replenishes the lack. (the Diatessaron [150 AD]: Where there is suffering, [Christ] says, to there the physician hastens.)
41. (The Father) gave of himself to replenish whomever lacks, in order that thereby he may receive
grace. In the time of his deficiency he had no grace. Thus wherever grace is absent, there is inferiority.
At the time when he received this smallness which he lacked, (then the Father) revealed to him a
fullness, which is this finding of the light of truth that dawned upon him in unchangeability. This is why
the Christ was invoked in their midstso that they would receive their returning. He anoints with the
Chrism those who have been troubled. (Th 2) The anointing is the compassion of the Father who will have
mercy upon them. Yet those whom he has anointed are those who are perfected. (Mt 18:4, Th 21/22/46, Tr 8;
Mt 5:48, Ph 28)

42.For jars which are full are those which are sealed. Yet when its sealant is destroyed, a jar leaks. And
the cause of its being emptied is the absence of its sealant, for then something in the dynamics of the air
evaporates it. But nothing is emptied if the sealant has not been removed, nor does anything leak away,
but rather the perfect Father replenishes whatever is lacking.
43.He is good. He knows his seedlings, for it is he who planted them in his paradise. Now his paradise is
his realm of repose. This is the perfection in the thought of the Father, and these are the logoi of his
meditation. Each one of his logoi is the product of his unitary volition in the revelation of his meaning.
While they were still in the depths of his thought, the Logos was the first to come forth. Furthermore he
revealed them from a mind that expresses the unique Logos in the silent grace called thought, since they
existed therein prior to becoming manifest. So it occurred that (the Logos) was the first to come forth, at
the time when it pleased the will of him who intended it. (Jn 1:1)
44. Now the volition of the Father is that which reposes in his heart and pleases him. Nothing exists
without him, nor does anything occur without the volition of the Father. (Ps 139:16, Pro 20:24, Jn 5:19) But his
volition is unfathomable. (Isa 40:13) His volition is his imprint, and no one can determine it nor anticipate
it in order to control it. But whenever he wills, what he wills existseven if the sight does not please
them. They are nothing before the face of God and the volition of the Father. For he knows the begin-
ning and the ending of them allat their finish he shall question them face-to-face. Yet the finish is to
receive acquaintance with This-One who was hidden. Now this is the Fatherthis-one from whom the
beginning came forth, this-one to whom all these shall return who came forth from him. (Th 77) Yet they
have been manifest for the glory and joy of his Name. (Cop i`nos, Gr : lit. footprint; Ps 11:7/17:15; Clement of
Alexandria, Stromata, V.6: Having become Son and Friend, [the Disciple] is now replenished with insatiable contemplation face to face.)

50
45.Now the Name of the Father is the Son. He first named him who came forth from himself, and who is
himself. And he begot him as a Son. He bestowed his own Name upon him. It is the Father who from his
heart possesses all things. He has the Name, he has the Son who can be seen. Yet his Name is trans-
cendentalfor it alone is the mystery of the invisible, which thru him comes to ears completely filled
with it. (Mt 1:21, Lk 1:31, Jn 17:6-26!, Ph 11!)
46. For indeed the Name of the Father is not spoken, yet rather it is manifested as a Son. (Jn 17:6) Accor-
dingly, great is the Name! Who therefore could proclaim a Name for him, the supreme Name, except
him alone whose Name this is, together with the Sons of the Name?those in whose heart the Name of
the Father reposes and who themselves likewise repose in his Name. Because the Father is immutable, it
is he alone who begot him as his own Name before he fashioned the eternal-ones, so that the Name of
the Father would be Lord over their headsthis-one who is truly the Name, secure in his command of
perfect power. (Ex 3:14, Th 13)
47.The Name is not mere verbiage, nor is it only terminology, but rather it is transcendental. He alone
named him, he alone seeing him, he alone having the power to give him a name. Whoever does not exist
has no namefor what names are given to nothings? But this existing-one exists together with his
Name. And the Father alone knows him, and he alone names him.
48. The Son is his Name. He did not keep him hidden as a secretbut rather the Son came to be, and
(the Father) alone named him. Thus the Name belongs to the Father, such that the Name of the Father is
the Son. How otherwise would compassion find a name, except from the Father? For after all, anyone
will say to his companion: Whoever could give a name to someone who existed before him?as if
children do not thus receive their names thru those who gave them birth!
49. Firstly, therefore, it is appropriate that we think on this topic: what is the Name? Truly (the Son) is
the Namethus also he is the Name from the Father. He is the existent Name of the Lord. Thus he did
not receive the Name on loan as do others, according to the pattern of each individual who is to be
created in his heart. For he is the Lordly Name. There is no one else who bestowed it upon him, but he
was unnamable and it was ineffable until the time when He who is Perfect gave expression to (the Son)
alone. And it is (the Son) who has the power to express his Name and to see him. Thus it pleased (the
Father) in his heart that his desired Name be his Son, and he gave the Name to himthis-one who came
forth from the profundity.
50. (The Son) expressed his secret, knowing that the Father is benevolent. This is exactly why (the
Father) brought this-one forthso that he might speak of the dominion and his place of repose from
which he came, and render glory to the fullness, the majesty of his Name, and the kindness of the Father.
He shall speak of the realm from which each one cameand each one who issued from that place shall
thus be hastened to return unto it again, to share in receiving his substance in the place where he stood,
receiving the taste of that place, receiving nourishment and growth. And his own dominion of repose is
his fullness. (Th 28)
51. Thus all the emanations of the Father are plenitudes, and the source of all his emanations is within
the heart of Him from whom they all flourish. He bestowed their destinies upon them. (Ps 139:16, Pro 20:24,
Jn 5:19) Thus is each one made manifest, such that thru their own meditation they [return to] the place to
which they direct their thought. That place is their source, which lifts them thru all the heights of heaven
unto the Father. They attain unto his head, which becomes their repose. And they are embraced as they
approach him, so that they say that they have partaken of his face in embraces. Yet they are not thus
made manifest by exalting themselves. They neither lack the glory of the Father, nor do they think of
him as being trite or bitter or wrathful. But rather he is benevolent, imperturbable and kindknowing all
the dimensionalities before they come into existence, and having no need of edification.

51
52. This is the form of those who themselves belong on high thru the grandeur of the immeasurable, as
they await the Unique and Perfect-One who makes himself there for them. And they do not descend unto
the abode of the dead. They have neither jealousy nor lamentation nor mortality there among them, but
rather they repose within him who is reposeful. They are neither troubled nor devious concerning the
truth, but rather they themselves are the truth. The Father is within them and they are within the Father,
perfected and made indivisible in the truly good, not inadequate in anything but rather given repose and
refreshed in the Spirit. And they shall obey their source in leisure, these within whom his root is found
and who harm no soul. This is the place of the blest, this is their place! (Jn 17:21-23, Ph 102)
53. Wherefore let the remainder understand in their places that it is not appropriate for me, having been
in the realm of repose, to say anything further. But it is within his heart that I shall beforever devoted
to the Father of the totality, together with those true Brothers and Sisters upon whom pours the love of
the Father and among whom there is no lack of him. These are they who are genuinely manifest, being
in the true and eternal life and speaking the perfect light which is filled with the seed of the Father, and
who are in his heart and in the fullness and in whom his Spirit rejoices, glorifying him in whom they
exist. He is good, and his Sons and Daughters are perfect and worthy of his Name. For it is children of
this kind that he the Father desires.

Notes to Truth

The translation of the Gospel of Truth is concordant with that of Thomas and Philip, and therefore words
discussed in the notes there are not duplicated here. Online are ( 1) the Coptic text: www.metalog.org/files/
truth.html; (2) Kendrick Grobels detailed textual commentary (Biblio. 16): www.metalog.org/files/grobel1.html;
and (3) a preliminary version of another extraordinary text from the Nag Hammadi library, perhaps by Valentine:
www.metalog.org/files/supremacy.html.

Acquaintanceship (4): see Recognition in Th Notes.

Count (32): this refers to the ancient technique of finger-calculation, whereby numbers 199 were counted
on the left hand, but from 100 upward on the right hand; the number 100 itself was formed by touching the right
forefinger-tip to the upper joint of the thumb (the Hindus call such a symbolic hand-posture a mudra).
Dead, Abode of the (52): Copt emnte (C056aC008b: west, as the entrance to the underworld) = Heb
lw)# (sheol: plead) = Gk (hades: unseen).
Emanation (14/22/23/51): Copt 5h (C392); Th 77; Grobel (Biblio. 16) convincingly shows that this term is
analogous to the Neo-Platonic notion of divine radiation, wherein all beings are likened to sunbeams emanating
from the one God; see Plotinus, Enneads, V.3.12: The analogy of light from a sunthe entire intellectual order
may be figured as a kind of light, with the One in repose at its summit as its King; cp. also A.C. Bhaktivedanta
Swami Prabhupada, Beyond Illusion and Doubt (1999): In the Bhagavad-gita, Krishna says, aham sarvasya
prabhavah: Everything is emanating from Me. Christ says that he is the son of God, and this means that he
emanates from God.
Eternal-Ones (15): see Aeon in Ph Notes; all creatures considered as eternal, relative to the trans-dimen-
sional mind of God (Lk 20:38, Jn 6:54, Angel, Image and Symbol).
Face-Form (8/17): Copt moung n-.6o (C175a/646b: form of face); Gen 32:30/33:10, Th 76; here the idea seems
similar to that expressed in those extraordinary Hindu religious paintings which show all men and creatures as
countless manifestations of one transcendental Deity (the Brahman)this metaphysic is found in the Upani-
shads and the Bhagavad Gita; see Emanation.
Form (23/29/38/52): Latin FORMA; it is a noteworthy idiosyncrasy of both this text and the Supremacy that the
Latin term is employed rather than the Gk (www.metalog.org/files/supremacy.txt).
Logoi (43): Gk ; this is the plural of (see Meaning in Th Notes), indicating that each Son-or-
Daughter of God is a divine Logos like unto the Savior (see Lk 6:40 with Jn 1:1+Th 108, also Ph 133 where John
the Baptist is quoted as Logos!).
Metanoia (39): see Mentality in Th Notes.

52
 Midst (8): Copt mhte (C190b: amidst, in transition, hence this transitory world); see Transition in Ph Notes
and in Tr 3.
Recognize (1): see Recognition in Th Notes, Hos 6:6, Mt 5:8.
Scheme (18): Gk ; form, plan, appearance as opposed to the substantial reality.
Seal (42): Copt tb-be (C398b); a sealant such as retsina, used to affix the top onto a jar/amphora to make it
airtight (perhaps led to the tradition of retsina flavoring in Gk wine).

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 Commentary
I Ching, hexagram 50 (The Ritual Vessel): The truly divine does not manifest itself apart from
humankind. The supreme revelation of God appears in prophets and holy men. To venerate them is true
veneration of God. The will of God, as revealed thru them, should be accepted in humility; this brings inner
enlightenment and true understanding of the world, and this leads to great good fortune and success. (Cary Baynes
tr. of Richard Wilhelm edition)

(1) Are the Coptic Gospels Gnostic?

The leaning of sophists towards the bypaths of apocrypha is a constant quantity.
James Joyce, Ulysses

E ver since the initial announcement of the Nag Hammadi discovery, and unto the present day, the library
as a whole has been consistently called gnostic, both in the scholarly literature and in the popular press. 1 To
begin with, the entire Nag Hammadi Library was so labeled in the Preface to the first bilingual editions of
Thomas (1959; Biblio. 7)which classification was subsequently accepted by virtually everyone who looked into
the text. Thus, representative of almost all subsequent publications was the report of Robert M. Grant & David
Noel Freedman, The Secret Sayings of Jesus (1960): [Regarding] the Gospel of Thomas, [Jean] Doresse looked
through this gospel in the spring of 1949 and later announced that it was a Gnostic composition.... The Gospel
of Philip contains nothing but Gnostic speculations. Wiser counsel, at least regarding Thomas, soon came from
no less an authority than Gilles Quispel at the centenary meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in 1964:
The Gospel of Thomas ... is not gnostic at all. The adherents of the gnostic interpretation ... must explain how the
author could possibly say that the buried corpse could rise again (logion 5, Greek version). Unfortunately, how-
ever, Quispels seemingly irrefutable point was soon eclipsed by a surge of fascination, in both academic publica-
tions and the media, with gnosticisms apparently more exotic enticements.
While there may well be gnostic writings amongst the several dozen titles found so significantly near the site
of Saint Pachomius archetypal monastery, the three Coptic Gospels in that collection are demonstrably not
gnostic in content. This can most readily be shown via an ordinary syllogism; the remainder of the present essay
will then consist in proving the two premises, from which the conclusion follows as proven. 2

1. No text, which affirms the basic reality and sanctity of incarnate life, can properly be labeled
gnostic.
2. The Coptic Gospels of Thomas, Philip and Truth (like the entire Old Testament, the New Testament
Gospels and Acts) explicitly assert the sacred reality of incarnate life.
Therefore 3. They are not gnostic writings. QED

Proof of the First Premise:

Gnosticism, Encyclopdia Britannica CD-ROM edition 2002: In the Gnostic view, the unconscious self
of man is consubstantial with the Godhead, but because of a tragic fall it is thrown into a world that is completely
alien to its real being. Through revelation from above, man becomes conscious of his origin, essence, and trans-
cendent destiny. Gnostic revelation is to be distinguished ... from Christian revelation, because it is not rooted in
history and transmitted by Scripture. It is rather the intuition of the mystery of the self. The world, produced from
1
The citations in Recent Scholarly Comments, in the Introduction above, are but notable exceptionswhich the student will
encounter only by an extensive review of the more academic literature. More typical are the prejudicial titles of Elaine
Pagels best-selling The Gnostic Gospels (1979); E.J. Brills entire scholarly series, Nag Hammadi Studies: The Coptic
Gnostic Library; and The Coptic Gnostic Library: A Complete Edition of the Nag Hammadi Codices, General Editor James
M. Robinson (2006 edition)for these last two, more appropriate titles would surely be The Coptic Monastic Library etc.
2
Modally: 1. (x)(x ~x); 2. a,b,c; 3. ~a,b,c; = entailment; ~ = negation; x = x asserts incarnate sanctity; x =
x is gnostic; a,b,c = Coptic Gospels.

54
evil matter and possessed by evil demons, cannot be a creation of a good God; it is mostly conceived of as an
illusion, or an abortion.

Proof of the Second Premise:

Thomas 5 (Gk): nothing that has been buried shall not be raised ( )
Th 12: for whose sake the sky and earth have come to be (paei n-ta.t.pe mn- p.ka6 4wpe etbht.3-)
Th 22a: the inside as the outside and the outside as the inside (p.sa n.6oun n-.qe m-.p.sa n.bol auw p.san.
bol n-.qe m-.p.sa n.6oun)
Th 22b: a hand in the place of a hand and a foot in the place of a foot (ou.2i` e.p.ma n-.n.ou.2i` auw ou.
erhte e.p.ma n-.ou.erhte)
Th 28: incarnate I was manifest to them (a.ei.ouon6 ebol na.u 6n-.sarc)
Th 29: the flesh has come to be because of spirit (n-ta.t.sarc 4wpe etbe p\n\a\)
Th 55: his cross (pe3.sros)
Th 113: the Sovereignty of the Father is spread upon the earth (t.m-nt.ero m-.p.eiwt e.s.por4 ebol
6i`m-.p.ka6)
Philip 25: it is necessary to arise in this flesh (6aps- pe e.twoun 6n- teei.sarc)
Ph 72: the power of the cross (t.dunamis m-.p.sros)
Ph 77: on the cross (6i p.sros)
Ph 78: the Lord arose from among the dead;... he is incarnate (a.p.`oeis twoun ebol 6n- net.moout ...
ounta.3 m-mau n-.sarc)
Ph 89: his body came into being on that day (pe3.swma n-ta.3.4wpe m-.foou et.m-mau)
Ph 107: the Living Water is a body (p.moou et.on6 ou.swma pe)
Ph 114: the Saint is entirely holy, including his body (p.rwme et.ouaab 3.ouaab thr.3 4a 6rai e.pe3.
swma)
Ph 132: Abraham ... circumcised the flesh of the foreskin (abra6am ... a.3.sbbe n-.t.sarc n-.t.
akrobustia)
Ph 137: under the wings of the cross and in its arms (6a n-.tn6 m-.p.sros auw 6a ne3.2boei)
Truth 6+10: he was nailed to a crossbeam (a.u.a3t.3- a.u.4e)
Tr 8: it was appointed for him who would take it and be slain (e.s.kh m-.pet.na.3it.3- n-.se.6l-6wl.3-)
Tr 9: Yeshua ... knew that his death is life for many (i\h\s\ ... 3.saune `e pi.mou n-toot.3- ou.wn6- n-.6a6 pe)
Tr 16: his love embodied it [the Logos] (5.agaph n-.toot.3- a.s.r- ou.swma 6iww.3)
Tr 21: the Logos ... became a body (pi.4e`e ... a.3.r- ou.swma)
Tr 29: he came forth incarnate in form (n-ta.3.ei abal 6i.toot.s- n-ou.sarc n-.smat)
Tr 30: light spoke thru his mouth (e.a.3.4e`e abal 6n- rw.3 n-2i p.ouaein)
Tr 37: the Father loves his fragrance and ... blends it with matter (p.iwt maie m-.pe3.staei auw ... e.3.
4a.tw6 mn- 5.6ulh)

It would merely beg the question to claim that all such passages were inserted into otherwise gnostic docu-
ments; to omit from consideration all and only contrary passages per se, constitutes the logical fallacy called
petitio principii. Moreover, one would then have to ask why the remaining logia of these three Gospels should
be considered gnostic to begin with, since the sanctity of incarnate reality is there nowhere denied.

Conclusion: It follows that the Gospels of Thomas, Philip and Truth are not gnostic compositions or compi-
lations.

It is admittedly scandalous that virtually an entire generation of scholars should have erred regarding
something so elementary and so vitally important as this (Th 39!). There were of course a wide variety of gnostic
movements and scriptures in antiquity, often influenced by Platonisms epistemological distrust of the senses; and

55
indeed there have been many gnostico-theosophical sects together with their writings in modern times, no doubt
more often influenced by Oriental religious traditions than by Plato. But this has no direct bearing on the three
Coptic Gospels, whichlike the four canonical Gospelscannot rightly be considered gnostic documents.1

(2) The Maternal Spirit

As one whom his mother comforts, so shall I comfort you.
Isa 66:13

The origin of the world is its Mother;

recognize the Mother and you recognize the child,
embrace the child and you embrace the Mother.
Lao Tsu, Tao Teh Ching, 5

I am the Father and the Mother of this Universe.

Bhagavad Gita, 9.17

It is spoken by the Maker, Modeler, Mother-Father of Life, of Humankind.

Popul Vuh of the Quich Maya, Prologue.

In a remarkable saying in the Thomas Gospel, the Savior asserts: My mother bore my body, yet my True
Mother gave me the life.2 (Th 101; cf. Th 15/46) This passagethe only recorded occasion in which Christ refers
to God as his Mother 3is subsequently elucidated by an equally surprising entry in the Philip Gospel: Some say
that Mariam was impregnated by the Sacred Spirit. They are confused, they know not what they say. Whenever
was a female impregnated by a female? (Ph 18) For in this latter logion, attention is being drawn to the fact that
spirit is of feminine gender in the Semitic languages (Heb, xwr [rakh]: breath, wind, spirit). This fundamental
point, traditionally obscured in scriptural translation and largely ignored by commentators, clearly has the most
far-reaching theological implications.
It is simply ungrammatical, whenever there are alternate forms either available or readily constructed in a
given language, for a word to be used to refer to a being of the opposite genderthus for example Hebrew/
English )ybn/prophet and h)ybn/prophetess.4 But furthermore, xwr itself is very occasionally used as of
masculine gender, as in Ex 10:13: hbr)h-t) )#n Myrqh xwrw, the east wind brought the locusts, where the
verb )#n is in the qal perfect third-person masculine singular. Thus xwr could elsewhere in the OT have been
employed in the masculine in referring to the Divine Spirit, if that had been considered more appropriate.
Let us also note the salient parallel between Isa 66:13 LXX and Jn 14:16:

.
Like if of-someone mother helpmates, thus also I helpmate you.

1
For a recently discovered Coptic Gospel (found, not at Nag Hammadi, but rather in the 1970s near El Minya in Egypt),
which by contrast clearly is gnostic as well as pseudonymous, see the Gospel of Judas Iscariot. That document contains such
typical gnostic ramblings as: The first is Seth who is called Christ, the second is Harmathoth who is [...], the third is Galila,
the fourth is Yobel, the fifth is Adonaios; these are the five who ruled over the underworld, and first of all over chaos.... Then
Saklas said to his angels: Let us create a human being after the likeness and after the image. They fashioned Adam and his
wife Evewho is called, in the cloud, Zoe (www9.nationalgeographic.com/lostgospel). See also April D. DeConick,
Gospel Truth, New York Times Op-Ed, 1.XII.07 (www.metalog.org/files/gosp.judas/DeConick.html).
2
ta.maau gar n-ta.[s.mise m-mo.i eb]ol [ta.maau] de m-.me a.s.5 na.ei m-.p.wn6 ; see Bear in Th Notes.
3
But see the Gospel of the Hebrews: The Savior says:... my Mother the Sacred Spirit (cited by Origen, Commentary on
John, ii.12.87), as well as the maternal image in the Mother Hen parable at Mt 23:37, and also the quotes from Gilles Quispel
and Raymond Brown in Recent Scholarly Comments, Introduction, above.
4
Nonetheless, the contrary grammatical gender can be used in order to obtain a determined cognitive effectthus an
ordained female may be called a priest rather than a priestess, in order to emphasize an equality of ecclesiastical rle
between the two sexes. The metaphorical meanings of sentences in which are used the masculine or the feminine of ... terms,
[are] completely distinct, Pedro Jos Chamizo Domnguez, Metfora y conocimiento, Universidad de Mlaga, 1998.

56
 .
And-I shall-request of-the Father, and another helpmate he-will-give you.

This evident allusion strongly conveys a maternal concept of the Paraclete.

Now of course in Greek is neuter and masculine, while SPIRITUS and ADVOCATUS in
Latin are both masculine in gender. Hence starting from the earliest versions of both the Old and New Testaments
in non-Semitic tongues, the very idea was lost which Thomas is conveying and Philip emphasizing in the
foregoing quotations. Thus from having the neuter form instead of a feminine form in
Greek, we pass to e.g. el Espritu instead of la Espritu in Spanish, der Geist instead of die Geist in German,
and in English he/him in place of she/her referring to the Helpmate (Heb, Mxn-m: participle, and thus without
gender) in Jn 16:7 ff.
We need hardly remind ourselves of the confusions, schisms and even religious machismo to which this
gender-shift has given rise across the centuries, as theologians struggled to make sense of a presumably all-male
Trinity. Thus, as is well known, the Orthodox/Catholic rupture of 1054 AD resulted from the vexed filioque
controversy over the procession of the third member of the Trinity. 1 With the Sacred Spirit as a maternal figure,
however, the underlying idea is clarified: Father God and Mother Spirit and Incarnate Son as the basic mystery of
three-in-one, the threefold Godhead. Here the concept is evidently that of a transcendental holy family, in which
the Divine Childand indeed each child 2 (Mt 18:10, Jn 11:52)is eternally born, not of the physical union
between human parents, but rather of the mystical union between the paternal and maternal aspects of the
Divinity:

Thus, as to the filioque controversy, it is precisely a third possibilityand neither the Oriental nor the Occi-
dental doctrinethat resolves the issue: the Sacred Spirit does not proceed from the Father, either with or
without the Son; rather the Son proceeds (is born) from the Father joined with the Sacred Spirit. This logically
coherent form of the Trinitarian concept has for centuries been effectively obscured by a simple grammatical
shift.
One might therefore say that in the flesh Yeshua was once born of the Virgin Mariam, whereas in the Spirit
she is eternally born of him; the Virgin is the Incarnation of the maternal Spirit, just as Yeshua is the Incarnation
of God the Father (Jn 19:26-27!).
Herewith are the other passages in Thomas, Philip and Valentine which directly concern this topic: Yeshua
sees little children who are being suckled. He says to his Disciples: These little children who are being suckled are
like those who enter the Sovereignty. (Th 22) In the days when we were Hebrews we were fatherless, having
only our Mother. Yet when we became Messianics, the Father came to be with the Mother for us. (Ph 6) She
alone is the truth. She makes the multitude, and concerning us she teaches this alone in a love thru many. (Ph 12)
His (true) Mother and Sister and Mate is (called) Mariam. (Ph 36) A Disciple one day made request of the
Lord for something worldly; he says to him: Request of thy Mother and she will give to thee from what belongs to
another. (Ph 38) Wisdom is barren without Sonshence she is called the Mother,... the Sacred Spirit, the True
Mother who multiplies her Sons. (Ph 40) The wisdom which humans call barren is the Mother of the Angels.
(Ph 59) Adam came into being from two virginsfrom the Spirit and from the virgin earth. (Ph 90) The Mother
is the truth, yet the conjoining is the recognition. (Ph 116) He supports them all, he atones them and moreover he
assumes the face-form of every one, purifying them, bringing them backwithin the Father, within the Mother,
Yeshua of infinite kindness. The Father uncovers his bosom, which is the Sacred Spirit, revealing his secret. His

1
Filioque: combination of Latin words meaning and of the Son, added to the Nicene Creed of 325 AD by the Visigothic
III Council of Toledo in 589 AD: CREDO IN SPIRITUM SANCTUM QUI EX PATRE {FILIOQUE} PROCEDIT : I believe in the
Sacred Spirit, who from the Father {and the Son} proceeds; the Orthodox Church did not accept the inclusion, leading to the
final rupture of 1054 AD between the Eastern and Western Churches.
2
I assume that (uniquely born) in Jn 1:14 refers to the singularity of the Virgin Birth, and not to Christs being
the only Son; see Jn 1:12-13 20:17.

57
secret is his Son! (Tr 17).
In numerous entries in the latter part of Philip, reference is then made to the or Bridal-Chamber
wherein the Son is born of the mystical union of the Father with the Spiritthus for example: If it is appropriate
to tell a mystery, the Father of the totality mated with the Virgin who had come downand a fire shone for him
on that day. He revealed the power of the Bridal-Chamber. Thus his body came into being on that day. He came
forth from the Bridal-Chamber as one who has issued from the Bridegroom with the Bride. This is how Yeshua
established the totality in his heart. And thru these, it is appropriate for each one of the Disciples to enter into his
repose. (Ph 89) This primal mystery is then celebrated in the sacrament of the Holy Bridal-Chamber (Th 75,
Ph 73/79).
It will be of value to list here the fourteen female Disciples who appear in the scriptures: ( 1) the Virgin [Mt
1:18/13:55/28:1, Lk 2:48 {thy father??}, Ac 1:14] ; (2) Mariam the sister of Yeshua [Mc 6:3, Ph 36]; (3) Mariam of
Magdala [Lk 8:2, Jn 20:1-18]; (4) Mariam the wife of Cleopas [Lk 24:18, Jn 19:25]; (5) Mariam the mother of John
Mark [Ac 12:12]; (6,7) Mariam & Martha of Bethany [Lk 10:38-42, Jn 11]; (8) the sister of the Virgin [Jn 19:25];
(9) Salome [Mk 15:40/16:1, Th 61b]; (10) Susanna [Lk 8:2]; (11) Johanna wife of Chuza [Lk 8:2/24:10]; (12) the wife
of Zebedee [Mt 20:20-23/28:56]; (13) Tabitha [Ac 9:36-43]; and (14) Rhoda [Ac 12:13-17].

(3) Theogenesis
wnlkl dx) b) )wlh
Mal 2:10

T he canonical Gospels clearly teach that the disciple per se is born of God rather than of human parents:
To all who received him,... he gave power to be generated children of God; who were born, not of ... the will of
a human, but of God (Jn 1:12-13); You are all Brothers and Sisters, and [so] call no man your father on earth,
for you have but one Father, the celestial (Mt 23:8-9). And hence indeed the Saviors astonishing assertion in
the Thomas Gospel: My mother (the Virgin) bore me, but my true Mother (the Sacred Spirit) gave me the life
(Th 101).
Furthermore and most importantly, with reference to the remainder of mankind (those who are not yet dis-
ciples), the canonical text states: I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also,... so there
shall be one flock, one shepherd;... to gather into One the children of God who are scattered abroad (Jn 10:16/
11:52); and Go therefore and make disciples of all nations (Mt 28:19).
This most fundamental messianic doctrine may be summarized as follows: The person instructed by the
Logos, who thus comes to know himself (Th 3), thereby sees that he has in truth all along been an eternally be-
gotten Son of God, born from above (Gk , Jn 3:7-8+31). However, the vast multitudes of humankind are
evidently unaware of being Children of the Most High, rather than children of local couples. Hence confusion and
evil, and hence the need for evangelization (see T.P. Brown, God and the Good: www.metalog.org/files/tpb/
god.g.html).
II

Let us now consider the following quite extraordinary entry in the Philip Gospel: Adultery occurred first,
then murder. And (Cain) was begotten in adultery, (for) he was the son of the serpent. Therefore he became a
manslayer just like his other father, and he killed his brother. (Ph 46). Now, in whatever sense could it be said that
Cain was born of the serpent?
We may first call to mind one of the traditionally most difficult canonical passages, from Johns Gospel:
You [infidels] are of your Father the Devil;... he was a murderer from the origin;... he is a liar and the Father of
Lies (Jn 8:44). Utilizing this important parallel, to say that Cain was born of the serpent, is to say that he was born
of a lie. In what sense, then, was Cain born of an untruth?
Of consummate relevance here is the fact that Cain in Hebrew signifies product:

58
 zyq: fit together, fabricate, make artificially, forge, Hebrew-Aramaic and English Lexicon of
the Old Testament (#8544), by F. Brown, S.R. Driver and C.A. Briggs, 1906; based upon
Wilhelm Gesenius, Lexicon Manuale Hebraicum et Chaldaicum, 1833 (included in Biblio. 29).

So in the Genesis account, by giving the name Cain to the infant, the woman and the man were saying that
the child was at least in part their own creation: I have produced a man with the help of Yahweh (Gen 4:1)
rather than entirely the Lords creation, merely produced thru them: You do not know how the spirit comes to the
bones in the womb of a woman (Ecc 11:5).
And so they called themselves the parents of the child, rather than calling God its sole progenitor. Further-
more, in so doing they forgot that God is their own Parent as well. And thus in turn they claimed complete moral
authority over the infant as well as over themselvesjudging good and evil like gods, instead of letting God alone
proclaim judgment (Gen 3:5, Mt 7:1-2).1
This then was the Fall, the original transgression of humankind in the remotest past: accepting the miscon-
ception called human generation, instead of the reality of divine generation, down across the generations. Who-
ever recognizes father and mother, shall be called the son of a harlot (Th 105). Which confusion Christ came to
rectify, by proclaiming that all humankind are in truth Angels born of God and thus Brothers and Sisters, rather
than mere children of humans (see Mt 12:46-50/18:10/23:9, Ph 64).

III

Philip 46 is thus a logion which seems genuinely to illumine and clarify not only the OT concept of Original
Sin, but also the notoriously difficult passage at Jn 8:44.

(4) Angel, Image and Symbol

Behold! The Lord is our mirror;
open your eyes and see them in him,
and learn the manner of your face.
Odes of St Solomon, 13:1

When the ultimate level of nonreaction has been reached,

awareness can clearly see itself as independent from the fundamental qualities of nature.
Patajali, The Yoga Sutra, I.16

That calld Body is a portion of Soul

discernd by the five senses.
William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

Nature is a mirror, the very clearest of mirrors;

look into it and admire!
Feodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment

The remarkable angel/image/symbol analysis woven thru the three Coptic Gospels proposes replacing [A]
the worldly frame of reference (paradigm, protocol, model, program, vocabulary) with [B] a celestial frame of
reference (paradigm, protocol, model, program, vocabulary). According to the former, we are electronic machines
in a material universe; according to the latter, we are eternal spirits in the mind of God, reflecting his imagination
in our five senses.
I. (Th 5/84) Nothing is hidden; our sensory images do not disguise anything ulteriorthat is, there is nothing
behind or beyond or within them. In philosophical terms, there is no material substratum underlying what is per-
1
To know good and evil is equivalent to deciding on ones own and with absolute independence what is good
and what is evil; that is, to have complete autonomy [from God] in moralsSanta Biblia Reina-Valera 95,
Edicin de Estudio, note to Gen 2:9 (Biblio. 24).

59
ceived. So in his superlative study, Claude Tresmontant states that biblical metaphysics is characterized by the
absence of the negative concept of matter.... The Hebrew tradition ... uncompromisingly affirms the goodness of
reality, of the sensible world, of created things.... [Thus] the Hebrew conception of the sensible insofar as it
differs from the Greek, is [of] a world in which the idea of matter does not occur.... Hebrew is a very concrete
language.... It has no word for matter nor for body [as contrasted with soul], because these concepts do not
cover any empirical realities. Nobody ever saw any matter nor a body, such as they are defined by substantial
dualism. The sensible elementswood, iron, waterare not matter; they are sensible realities.... If we wish to
refer to the sensible as matter, there can be no objection. It is just a question of words. But then we must make
quite sure of our meaning and not refer to ... an inconceivable material substance. (Biblio. 19; in the Middle
Ages, the Jewish philosophers adopted the term mlg [golem, embryo; only in Ps 139:16] to signify matter)
II. (Th 19/22/36/50/67/80/83, Ph 24/26/81/84/95) Starting with this implicit axiom that there can be no such
thing as matter (that being, in our modern phrase, an essentially non-referential term), the texts proceed to
designate our entire sensory field as imagery (icons). This latter therefore serves as a collective term for what
recent philosophers have called phenomena or sense-dataincluding ones interior soliloquy, memories,
emotions and fantasies, as well as those perceptions which comprise ones individual incarnation together with its
empirical environment.
III. (Th 37/42, Ph 9/30/47/85/112) But imagery logically presupposes consciousness. Ones correspondingly
juxtaposed individual ego is then designated as an angel, a pure awareness which like a mirror reflects (con-
templates) its spacio-temporal complex of sensory images. In this way, the angel is said to be mated with its
imagery. Furthermore, as all space and time are merely relations among the images, the angel is itself non-spacio-
temporal or eternal; thus Jn 3:15-16+36/5:24/6:47+54, etc.
IV. (Mt 18:10, Th 5/15/17/52/59/76/91, Ph 65/107) Therefore there is a Universal Consciousness corresponding
to the meta-totality of all imagery; this superego is by definition God (Gen 1:26, in our imagination). Each
person or angel is thus like a mirror in the mind of God, individually reflecting in his five senses the plethora of
the divine imagination. (This importantly does not entail that everyone be explicitly cognizant of that relation,
which presumably requires instruction by the Logos.) There is here a lovely word-play on : our sensory
images are themselves holy icons. (as in Victor Hugo, Les Misrables: All the aspects of things are thoughts of
God; Anton Chekhov, The Sea Gull: The common soul of the world is the I.)
V. Thus, regarding the primordial query of Thales of Miletus (625-546 BC) as to the basic substance of the
perceptible Universefrom which all subsequent scientific and philosophical inquiry aroseChrist appears to
have taught that it is composed of Gods imagination. It would, I think, be difficult to exaggerate the innovative
brilliance of this insight.
VI. (Jn 5:19, Th 75, Ph 6/32/40/93/130/143) To know ones incarnate self as essentially a reflection of imagery
in the mind of God, is then to know that one is eternally born in the Bridal-Chamber of the mystical union of the
Two into One: the Light with the Spirit, the Father with the Mother, the Bridegroom with the Bride, and Christ
with the Totality. (the Song of Songs)
VII. (Th 83, Ph 78, Tr 8/17) But a mirror is itself a type of image, not somehow separate from the visual field,
but rather a symmetrical spacial configuration within itas is indeed an echo a symmetrical temporal configu-
ration in the auditory field. In just such a symmetry are the pair, the angel and its image, united: each individual is
a particular reflection within the universal divine imagery. The incarnate Christ is then proposed as the perfect
mirror-image (face-form) of the Father, in which God beholds himself ideally reflected. We ourselves, on the
other hand, are intended by God as imperfectthough perfectible (Mt 5:48, Lk 1:6, Tr 53)mirror-images of
incarnation in his imagination.
VIII. (Jn 1:1-3, Ph 10/11/13/25/72/136, Tr 43) Remaining to be considered would be the entire topic of seman-
tics, which is to say of the logos or meaning itself; what is it precisely that characterizes those imagessounds,
pictures, gestures, inscriptions, etc., or thoughts thereofwhich serve as specifically symbolic images, inclu-
ding linguistic icons? Words and sentences are, after all, themselves images (whether physical or mental) which
are being put to a symbolic, communicative use. Are then propositions and their components perhaps, like the
persons who use them, essentially reflectional? This would imply that the symbolism of language consists in a
polydimensional mirroring of its possible denotationsjust as the identity of a person consists in his reflecting
his own imagery and in his being a reflection (incarnation) of God. Here we would have to analyze the various
interrelations of at least six parallel binaries: ego/imagery, substance/attribute, subject/object, subject/predicate,
active/passive and variable/functionboth among individuals and regarding the Godhead.
IX. Regarding only the syntactical structure which is required e.g. in order to format noun-phrases and verb-

60
phrases, we might well think that a persons being essentially a subjective mirroring of objective images could in
itself enable him inherently to understand the subject-predicate as well as the active-passive (Jn 5:19) grammatical
forms. This would perhaps help to explain the necessarily innate linguistic capacity of children (thus Noam
Chomsky) to understand, generate and transform new sentences in the language.
X. Children, however, assuredly learn single words before they learn sentences; so individual words are
indeed primitive in language. Now, since a word is an image (sound, inscription, etc.), we might raise the question
whether there is a significant logical parallel between such ordinary linguistic icons and computer icons. For the
latterfar from being mere picturesrepresent files of programs as well as of data; so we might hypothesize that
a word is a type of image which designates a file either of data (including images) or of a program. Thus men
will, quite naturally, have made computers as simplified models of their own rationality. (Cf. Alan Turing,
Computing Machinery and Intelligence, Mind, 1950: In the process of trying to imitate an adult human mind,
we are bound to think a good deal about the process which has brought it to the state that it is in. NB also:
ordinary language and life are generally analog, i.e. have continuous rather than digital truth-functions, whereas
modern computers function in a binary calculus.)
XI. Such a unique and extraordinary metaphysic, which might well be called Spiritual Idealism, has
significant parallels with (1) the Neoplatonism of Plotinus in his Enneads; (2) George Berkeleys philosophy of
Subjective Idealism, according to which sensible things cannot exist otherwise than in a mind or spirit; whence ...
there must be some other Mind wherein they exist [Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous]; (3) Gottfried
Wilhelm Leibniz schema of ourselves as monads mirroring the Universe, with God as the Supreme Monad
[Monadology, 56]; (4) the ego/phenomena analysis of Immanuel Kant, where the unity of consciousness pre-
ceding all empirical data,... the transcendental unity of apperception is in essential polarity with the [sensory]
manifold of all our intuitions [Critique of Pure Reason, A106-7]see especially his eloquent transcendental
hypothesis [A779/B807]; (5) Ludwig Wittgensteins Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 5.64, Notebooks 1914-1916
[7.VIII.16 2.IX.16], and Philosophical Investigations [#373, Theology as grammar]; (6) Martin Bubers I and
Thousee also William Jamess prior The Will to Believe: The universe is no longer a mere It to us, but a Thou,
if we are religious; (7) Hans Reichenbachs The Philosophy of Space & Time [Dover Books, New York, n/d];
(8) Maurice Merleau-Pontys Phenomenology of Perception; and (9) much traditional Oriental epistemology:
Hindu, Buddhist, and Taoist [Th 30!]thus e.g. Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism [2nd Series]:
The entire structure of [Mahayana] Buddhist philosophy is based on an idealistic monism; cp. also the poly-
morphic incarnationism of the Bhagavad Gita, 11:5: Behold my forms in hundreds and thousandsdiverse,
divine, of many colors and shapes.
XII. The Meaning of the Images . A person is the consciousness of a particular set of sensory images,
some or all of which are symbolic; God is the universal consciousness of all imagery and symbolism.

1. Ego is consciousness (subjectivity, passivity, substance, noumenon)

1.1 of images: things
1.2 of meaning: concepts
1.3 of oneself and other persons: incarnations
2. Imagery is sensory (objectivity, activity, attributes, phenomena)
2.1 consciousness and imagery are interdefined
2.2 the five senses
2.21 NB emotions are symbolic feelings
2.3 perception
2.31 we perceive our incarnations and their environment
2.311 two persons can and do perceive the selfsame image
2.32 we communicate via perceived symbols
2.33 coexistence = space
2.4 memory
2.41 memories are images from past perceptions
2.42 change = time
2.5 imagination/fantasy
2.51 hyperdimensionality
2.52 volition is choice among imagined actions (deliberation)
2.521 legality, ethics

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 2.522 Mosaic/Christlike as legal/moral norms
2.523 pardon/forgiveness transcends individual value-systems
2.53 karma is analog, not binary
2.531 thus e.g. Mt 25 as a binary parable of an analog event
2.6 dreams, visions, hallucinations
3. Meaning is symbolism (rationality, logos)
3.1 a symbol is an image which represents something(s)
3.11 e.g. utterances, gestures, pictures, alphabets, musical scores
3.12 a symbol can be perceived, remembered, fantasized, dreamt, etc.
3.2 all thought, language and communication are in symbolic imagery
3.3 a symbol can be either simpler, or more complex, than its referent
3.31 metaphors are overlapping symbols
3.32 parables are metaphorical stories
3.321 NB Gen 1-11 as (partly) parabolic!
3.4 images can symbolize:
3.41 other imagery
3.42 other symbols
3.421 by definition: lexica, axioms, criteria
3.422 empirically: encyclopedias, information symbols
3.423 by stipulation of criteria
3.4231 ethics
3.4232 art
3.4233 music
3.43 comparisons and modifications among images
3.431 qualitative: humanities, the arts
3.432 quantitative: mathematics, the sciences
3.44 propositional operations on symbols
3.441 predication (assertion)
3.442 conjunction, negation (truth-tables)
3.443 relations
3.45 programmatic operations on symbols
3.451 analog (practicality)
3.452 digital (computation)
3.46 persons
3.461 life is analog
3.5 the logos of x = the arrangement/design of x
3.6 the logos of x = the symbolism of x
3.7 logos = arrangement + symbolism
4. People are incarnate egos/angels/spirits
4.1 a person is a conscious/reflective complex of imagery
4.11 NB mirrors are themselves images which reflect other imagery
4.12 thus we perceive ourselves as reflecting complexes of imagery
4.2 its imagery is within the ego (as its content)
4.3 the ego is within its imagery (as its reflectivity)
4.31 hence between ego and imagery there is reciprocity, not duality
4.4 I am the awareness of this (reflective/symbolic) imagery
4.41 this is the angel mated to its iconology
4.5 animals also are incarnations ( reincarnations)
4.6 God is the Universal Consciousness
4.61 our Universe is the imagination of God, the cinema in his mind
4.62 thus the universal complexity is within the divine simplicity
4.63 ecology is sacred
4.631 Christ as the gardener (Jn 20:15)
4.7 each person is an incarnation of God

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 4.71 all are face-forms of the universal Father/Mother
5. Totality
5.1 of images: meta-imagery, the Universe
5.2 of consciousness: meta-ego, God
5.3 of symbolisms: meta-logos, Meaningfulness
6. Trinity
6.1 the Father of the images (the Bridegroom; creation, incarnation)
6.2 the Mother of the spirits (the Bride; birth, consciousness)
6.3 the Childhood of ourselves (the Sons and Daughters of the Bridal Chamber)
6.31 Brother/Sisterhood and compassion
7. Unity
7.1 the incarnate Christ symbolizes the Godhead:

7.2 contemplation
7.3 repose

(5) The Paul Paradox

.
Rev/Ap 2:2
I
Those who study the New Testament may well note that popular red-letter editions of the text, with
Christs words thus highlighted, contain virtually no such rubrics thruout the Epistles of Paul. With the sole
exception of the Eucharistic formula at I-Cor 11:24-25, he does not quote any sayings of the historical Yeshua/
Jesus, either as found in the written Gospels or from a contemporaneous oral tradition. 1 Indeed furthermore, he
never even once alludes to the panorama of the Saviors life story from the Nativity up to the Passion, as well as
his elaborate teaching, which fill the pages of the first four books of the New Testament. This is, on the face of it,
a most puzzling omission.
Beyond this remarkable lack of historical concern, however, there is an even more enigmatic aspect of Pauls
record in the New Testament. For an objective, philosophical reading of the documents would seem to reveal a
number of logical contradictions, both within his biography and also between his theology and that of the Evan-
gelists. It must be emphasized that these anomalies are conceptual rather than empirical in nature. For although
they of course occur in interwoven historical, theological and normative contexts within the NT, they nevertheless
present themselves as a priori problems of analytical consistency between various textsregardless of the truth
or falsity of any factual claims being made or presumed by those texts. Furthermore, these discrepancies must be
similarly distinguished from logically posterior issues concerning the ancient composition, editing, redactions or
dating of the New Testament writings, all of which are factual/ historical topics.
In sum, and stated more formally: the Pauline antinomies are logical contradictions and therefore cannot in
principle be resolved by means of either historical investigation or textual criticism, both of which are empirical
methodologies.
Neither is this the place to provide a retrospective survey of the many past commentaries on these complex
questions. I shall only append a series of quotations from a large number of eminent figures who are in general
agreement that Pauls doctrines appear to be seriously at odds with the Gospel message. These excerpts suffice to
1
Although, astonishingly, at Ac 13:24-25 he does quote John the Baptist! Ac 20:35, on the other hand, is actually a citation
from Thucidides Peloponnesian War, II.97.4; whilst Ac 26:14 is in fact from lines 1660-1 of Aeschylus Agamemnon.

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show that what might be called the Paul paradox has been recognized by a remarkably wide spectrum of
prominent individuals across the centuries.

II

Here then is the matrix of antinomies, along with a brief statement of the apparent logical contradiction in
each case. The original Greek should always be checked, at least via Adolph Knochs superlative interlinear
(Biblio. 18), as translations since antiquity have oftenintentionallyblurred these very discrepancies. It should
be borne in mind, however, that such contrasts are oftentimes analog rather than binary in nature; as so commonly
in real life, instead of either/or, it may be a case of more or lessas for instance in #16, where one might donate
to the poor anywhere from nothing up to everything (cf. Lk 19:8-9, but also Ac 5:1-11!) . Others of the following
dichotomies, on the other hand, are irreducibly binary in form.
01. Ac 9:7 (Dt 4:12) Ac 22:9
In the propositional calculus of modern logic, p & not-q is the truth-functional negation of q & not-p.
Thus they heard the voice but did not see anyone directly contradicts they saw the light but did not hear the
voice. Yet that famous event on the Damascus road was the sole original justification for Pauls supposed
commission in independence of Peter/Kefa and the other Apostles. (Cf. E. Pagels, 1975/79, in the Appendix)
02. Ac 9:26-29 Gal 1:17-2:1
Did Paul then travel immediatelyor seventeen years later!from Damascus to Jerusalem in order to meet
the entire Apostolic circle?
03. Mt 1:16/22:41-45, Lk 3:23 Rom 1:3
Paul asserts that Christ is descended from David, which the Gospels explicitly deny.
04. Mt 23:21, Lk 2:49/19:45-46 Ac 17:24
The Gospels endorse the OT designation of the Temple in Jerusalem as the very House of the L ORD. Paul
nevertheless proclaims to the Athenians that God inhabits no sanctuary made by human hands.
05. Ac 1:15 I-Cor 15:5-6
How can Christ have appeared to the Twelve, and then to over 500 Brothers at once, at a time (prior to the
Ascension) when there were only eleven Apostles (Iscariot being gone and Matthias not yet chosen) and the entire
Discipleship numbered only 120?
06. Mt 10:2+40/16:15-19 Gal 2:6+11-13
The explicit designation of Simon Peter as the foremost Apostle, with all the delegated authority of the Lord
himself, logically precludes any other Disciple or Apostle opposing him to his face and (worse yet) calling him a
hypocrite. Had Paul indeed nothing to learn from the original Apostles?
07. Mt 28:16-20, Ac 10:1-11:18/15:7-8+13-18 Gal 2:6-9
The Gospel doctrine is clearly that, after the resurrection, the remaining eleven Apostles were sent forth to
proclaim the good news to the whole world. Paul nevertheless claims to be the one and only Apostle to the gen-
tiles (the Apostle as he is often called), while Peter and the others according to this view were to be restricted to
evangelizing among the Jews!
08. Mt 5:48, Lk 1:6, Jn 1:14/6:53-56 Rom 8:8
The incarnation of the Logos, and also the injunction to be perfect, entail that those who are in the flesh can
indeed please God.
09. Lk 24:36-43, Jn 11:43-44/20:27, Ac 1:9-11, Ph 25 I-Cor 15:50
The evangelists proclaim an incarnate resurrection and parousia (second coming), whereas Paul on the
contrary takes an anti-corporeal, frankly gnostic position.
10. Lk 4:5-8, Jn 18:36/19:18, Ac 4:26 (Ps 2:2) Rom 13:1-5
The celestial kingdom is described in the Gospels as of another order from the entire realm of the nations,
which are ruled by Satan and whereby Christ was crucified. On the other hand, the secular authorities with all
their weaponry (including Mk 15:16 ff.??) are stated by Paul to be Gods own armed force for punishing sinners!
11. Mt 22:21 Ac 25:11
Christ cedes taxes to Caesar, Paul cedes his personal security to him (Nero, no less!).
12. Dt 23:15-16, Mt 23:10-12, Jn 8:31-36 Col 4:1, I-Tim 6:1-2, Philem 10-19
The re-conceptualization in the Gospels promises to emancipate the believers from oppressive relationships,
while Paul literally endorses slavery within the Discipleship.

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13. Mt 12:46-50/23:8-9, Lk 14:25-26, Jn 1:12-13/3:1-8/11:52 Col 3:18-21, I-Tim 5:8
Christ teaches that family ties are to be renounced in favor ofthat is, replaced bythe Father/Motherhood
of God together with the Brother/Sisterhood of the incarnate Sons and Daughters, whereas Paul adamantly
defends the traditional family structure.
14. Mt 19:10-12, Lk 14:20-26/18:28-30/20:34-36, Ph 64! I-Cor 7:2-16+9:5?, Eph 5:22-24, I-Tim 3:1-4:3
The Gospels stipulate that those worthy of salvation must transcend matrimony (note that Lk 18:28-30
occurs after Lk 4:38-39); let us not forget that, according to Gen 3:16, monandry was Eves punishment for
disobedience! Paul notwithstanding permits a continuation of marriage among the Disciples.
15. Num 6:5, Lev 19:27, Jud 13:5, I-Sam 1:11, Mt 2:23, Tr 21 I-Cor 11:14
The Hebrew tradition was that long hair on male or female is a sign of holiness and special devotion to God.
Indeed the word at Mt 2:23 is (the LXX or Septuagint term for Nazirite), not (someone
from Nazareth). Were not Samson, the Prophet Samuel, John the Baptist and Christ himself thus consecrated from
birth?
16. Mt 6:24-34/10:8, Mk 10:13-31, Lk 10:38-42/14:28-33, Ac 4:32-36 Ac 18:1-3, I-Cor 11:34, II-Thes 3:6-12
Christ decrees a cessation of working for mammon, donating all private possessions to the poor, and fol-
lowing thereafter a lifestyle both communal and itinerantwithout anxiety day-to-day like the birds and the
flowers, with all shared possessions being distributed equitably among those who have needthus lifting the
curse of toil from mankind (Gen 3:17-19). Pauls advice, on the contrary, is to eat at home and avoid idlers, who
must either work or go hungry.
17. Mt 11:25/18:1-5, 21:16 (Ps 8:2), Mk 10:15, Th 4 I-Cor 13:11
Yeshua teaches that one must become childlike in order to find the Kingdom; Paul says the exact opposite.
18. Mk 7:14-23, Lk 7:34 Rom 14:21, I-Cor 8:13
Either we ought, or we ought not, to maintain some particular diet for religious reasons. Yet Paul agrees with
neither the OTs dietary rules (kashrut) nor the Saviors remarkable midrash (commentary) thereupon.
19. Mt 12:19 (Isa 42:2), Lk 10:7 Ac 17:16-34/20:20
Paul preaches house-to-house, as well as in the streets and squarescontrary to Christs paradigm.
20. Mt 6:5-6 I-Tim 2:8
Paul demands the very same outspoken prayer which Christ condemns as exhibitionist; the Savior states that
one should only pray in solitude and in secret, never openly.
21. Mt 18:1-4, Mk 9:33-35, Lk 14:7-11 II-Cor 11:5-12:13
Pauls recounting of his travels is insubordinately boastful and rivalrousrather than humble, respectful and
obedienttoward those who preceded him in the Discipleship: the , elders (in the faith).
22. Mt 5:43-48/7:1-5/9:10-13/18:21-35, Jn 8:2-11 I-Cor 5, Gal 5:12, Tit 3:10-11
The Gospel attitude toward wrongdoers is merciful, yet Pauls is frankly inquisitional. Is turning someone
over to Satan for the extermination of the flesh intended to mean delivering him to the secular authorities for
execution (as in Jn 19:17-18)? Are we to love our enemies or condemn and castigate them?
23. Mt 23:8-12 Ac 20:28, Gal 4:19, Phlp 2:22, I-Tim 1:2/3:1-13
Paul introduces the terms father and deacon and bishop to designate religious leadersthe very sort of
title (along with pastor, minister, etc.) which Christ had explicitly prohibited. Indeed, the passage in Matthew
would seem to preclude any kind of hierarchy in the Discipleship other than simple seniority (thus
in Ac 21:18, Jas 5:14, I-Pet 5:1, II-Jn 1)by which criterion Paul was obliged to submit to the original Apostles,
quite contrary to II-Cor 11:5 + Gal 2:6.
24. Gen 17:10, Lk 2:21 Ac 16:3?, Gal 5:2, Phlp 3:2, Tit 1:10-11
Saying that it is necessary to gag ( ) circumcisionist dogs is conceptually inappropriate in an
Apostolic context. In any event, even if Christ referred to circumcision parabolicallyas in Th 53he certainly
did not forbid its physical practice.
25. Lk 11:27-28, Jn 4:1-30/11:20-35/20:11-18, Th 21 I-Cor 14:34-35, I-Tim 2:11-15
Various women speak up boldly to the Savior. Later, Mariam Magdalene as first witness (!) of the resur-
rection is sent by Christ to angel ( : p66* )* A B) his rising to the Apostles themselves. This is not a
teaching of mere female submissiveness or keeping quiet in the Convocation!
26. Lk 7:36-8:3/10:38-42/23:55-24:11, Jn 12:1-3, Th 61b/114, Ph 59 I-Cor 7:1-2, Eph 5:22-24, Tit 2:4-5
The Gospels represent women as an intimate part of Christs entouragethus rescinding the punishment of
husband-domination in Gen 3:16. Paul emphatically opposes any liberated role for females.

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27. Mt 3:11-17/28:19-20, Ph 73/96/115! Rom 6:3-4, Col 2:12
The Gospels endorse Johns Baptism in water as signifying repentance and cleansing vis--vis the Torah, and
which furthermore is explicitly to be undertaken in the Name. Paul, however, sees Baptism as a metaphorical or
participatory dying!
28. Lk 23:43, Jn 5:24/8:51, Rev/Ap 20:4-6, Th 1/18/19/111, Ph 43 I-Thes 4:16-17
Christ teaches that his Disciples will not experience death, regardless of martyrdom, whereas Paul writes of
the dead in Christ.
29. Gen 4:1-5, Mk 15:10, Ph 134 I-Tim 6:10
Paul claims that the love of money is the root of all evil; but in the paradigm cases of Cain killing Abel and
the Chief Priests delivering up the Savior, envy is cited as the underlying ill, while Philip states that ultimately the
problem is confused ignorance (as in Lk 23:4, Ac 3:17).
30. Mt 5:17-19/19:16-19, Lk 16:29-31, Ac 21:17-24!, 4QMMT:C.26b-31 Rom 7:6, Gal 3:10/5:18
If the entire Torahthe Decalogue in particular, but also the remaining mitzvot (moral rules) such as Lev
19:18 et passimis in effect until the sky and earth pass away, then the Mosaic Law is not an obsolete curse from
which believers are absolved. This was the very topic at issue when, after Paul had completed his three missio-
nary journeys, all of the Elders (!) in Jerusalem required him to take the Nazirite vowto prove his continuing
adherence to the Law of Moses. (The works of the Torah ... will be reckoned to you as righteousness; from the
Dead Sea Scroll, Miqsat Maase ha-Torah)
31. Mt 7:21/11:2-6!/19:16-19/25:31-46, Jn 13:34!/14:21/15:10, Jas 2:14-26 Rom 3:28/10:9, I-Cor 15: 35-44
Christ says that ones calling him Lord is not enough, but rather that the Disciples total obedience is
demanded; both the OT and the Gospels require adherence to a plenitude of divine commandments, with resultant
fruitful deeds. Indeed, it was precisely by his worksand not merely by his faiththat Christ proved his own
authority to John the Baptist! Paul on the other hand states that a simple confession of faith, along with a belief in
Christs (merely spiritual, not corporeal) resurrection, sufficesa thoroughly antinomian doctrine. (This subject
must be carefully distinguished from that of forgivenessboth among humans and between God and humankind
as a pre-eminently innovative tenet in the teaching, first of John the Baptist and subsequently of Christ [Mk
1:4]. For of course absolution logically presupposes a transgression of the rules, not their abrogation; compare
e.g. Ezek 18 with Mt 6:14-15.)
32. Gen 49, Mt 19:28, Ac 1:13-26, Rev/Ap 2:2!/21:14, Barnabas 8:3! I-Cor 9:1-2, II-Cor 11:5-13
Finally, we must observe the fact that the permanent tally of the Apostles was established by the Savior at
exactly twelve (for obvious reasons of historical symbolismnote the symmetry at Rev/Ap 21:12-14), and
moreover that Paul was never numbered in that circle; not even Barnabas in his Epistle recognizes Pauls
Apostleship!: [The Apostles] to whom he gave the power of the Gospel to preach; and there are twelve as a
testimony to the tribes, because there are twelve tribes of Israel (8:3).

III

Paul of Tarsus is an enigmatic and contradictory figure. Caught in the ethical dilemma of calling all men
transgressors by the Torah, only to reject the Torah precisely for thus condemning them (Gal 3:10!), he was un-
acquainted with Christs historical teachings and practice; nor was he willing to learn of them from the original
Apostles (Gal 2:6). Thus his soteriology focused entirely on the Passion, of which he was aware, interpreting
Christs mission as exclusively an OT Sacrifice. Whereas the innovating Messianic message Christs teachings
as incarnate in his lifestyle, elaborated thruout the canonical Gospels prior to the Passion narrativeswas en-
tirely unknown to Paul. (On the 3-valued logic of Biblical morality, See Perfect in Ph Notes)
This is not to deny that he composed some eloquently poetic passages (such as Col 1:15-20); but these must,
in light of the aforelisted doctrinal conflicts, be considered no more than ornamentation in Pauls writings. Those
documents, in their entirety, proclaim a discipleship which is fundamentally incompatible with the message of
Christ himself as recorded in the historical Gospels.
Remarkably enough, prior to Clement of Alexandria and Irenaeus of Lyon at the close of the second century,
there is no single author who quotes from both the Gospels and Pauls Epistles. There was thus an exceedingly
long period of open schism between the traditions of the Twelve and of Paul, prior to the earliest attempts at
integration.
And yet the irony, of course, is that the canonical Gospels themselves, of which tradition Paul was so mani-
festly ignorant, were ultimately only preserved by the Pauline Churchwhich indeed has also disseminated

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worldwide the very OT which Paul himself had disparaged. On the other hand, the Petrine/Apostolic Church
(which by definition maintained the Gospel side of the foregoing matrix) seems not to have survived the perse-
cutions of the first two centuries.
Paul was personally in charge of the stoning of Stephen (Ac 7:58-8:1), since according to Dt 17:7 the
witnesses who laid their cloaks at his feetwere under his direct authoritywere obliged to cast the first
stones. Was he also the captain of the Temple guard who arrested Kefa and John in Ac 4:1? Might one even ask
as to his involvement the night Christ himself was arrested? (Remember that Lk 22:63-65 takes place at the hands
of the Temple guard, not those of the Romans.) Thus perhaps the puzzling II-Cor 5:16,
: We have known Christ according to the flesh. This would certainly explain Pauls subsequent ob-
session with unmerited forgiveness!
In any event, my purpose here has been merely to format a set of scriptural dichotomies which exhibit the
underlying logic of the ancient Messianic/Paulianity schism, as essentially a conceptual (and of course prag-
matic!) rather than a factual issue. This in turn may hopefully serve to stimulate in the reader a reconsideration
of the apostolic status of Saul of Tarsus. For he evidently never joined Christs Discipleship at allwhich would
indisputably have meant accepting Peters spiritual authoritymuch less became an Apostle.
These basic questions can no longer be papered over, nor can they be settled by institutional fiat. For their
illuminating implication is that traditional Christianityas defined by the classical NT canon including both the
Gospels and Marcions collection of Pauls Epistlesis logically self-contradictory and hence inherently unstable
(as the intervening centuries have all too clearly demonstrated). In a more positive light, since the Pauline
teaching amounts to an essentially Old Testament lifestyle (patriarchal families, property, priests, sanctuaries,
ceremonies, Mosaic righteousness), we might say that Pauline Christianity adopted the Gospel vocabulary
parabolically. Thus, to take the prime example, the traditional Christian Mass or Communion has served in the
Churches periodic reunions as a ceremonial symbol for actually living together and therefore always eating
togetherwhich was, most evidently, the Eucharist ( , as it was called) as celebrated in the first-century
Apostolic Petrine Community. In this manner, Brothers and Sisters of mine, Christianity across the centuries has
been fundamentally a parable of the original Discipleship.

Appendix: Critiques of Paul

(in chronological order)
Tertullian, The Prescription against Heretics (200 AD): Forasmuch as Peter was rebuked because, after he had lived
with the Gentiles, he proceeded to separate himself from their company out of respect for persons, the fault surely was one of
conversation, not of preaching. For it does not appear from this, that any God other than the Creator, or any Christ other than
[the son of] Mary, or any hope other than the resurrection, was [by him being] announced.
Macarius Magnes, Apocriticus, III.30-36 (ca. 300): [Paul] says, As many as are under the Law are under a curse (Gal
3:10). The man who writes to the Romans The Law is spiritual (7:14), and again, The Law is holy and the commandment
holy and just (7:12), places under a curse those who obey that which is holy!... In his Epistles he praises virginity (I-Tim
4:1, I-Cor 7:25), and then turns round and writes, In the latter times some shall depart from the faith,... forbidding to marry
(I-Tim 4:1-3).... And in the Epistle to the Corinthians he says, But concerning virgins I have no commandment of the Lord
(I-Cor 7:25).
St John Chrysostom, Homilies on Galatians (391): What is this, Oh Paul! Thou who neither at the beginning nor after
three years wouldest confer with the Apostles, do you now confer with them after fourteen years are past, lest you should be
running in vain? Better would it have been to have done so at first, than after so many years; and why did you run at all, if not
satisfied that thou were not running in vain? Who would be so senseless as to preach for so many years, without being sure
that his preaching was true?... As James says, You see, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews of them
which have believed; and they are informed of you, that you teach to forsake the Law (Acts 21:17 ff.).... Paul himself, who
meant to abrogate circumcision, when he was about to send Timothy to teach the Jews, first circumcised him and so sent
him.... He not only does not defend the Apostles, but even presses hard upon those holy men.... What could they, each of
whom was himself perfectly instructed, have learned from him?... Why did not the Apostles, if they praised your procedure,
as the proper consequence abolish circumcision?... The words, I resisted him to the face (Gal 2:11) imply a scheme; for had
their discussion been real, they would not have rebuked each other in the presence of the disciples, for it would have been a
great stumbling-block to them.... Be not surprised at his giving this proceeding the name of hypocrisy; for he is unwilling, as I
said before, to disclose the true state of the case, for the correction of the disciples. On account of their vehement attachment
to the Law, he calls the present proceeding hypocrisy, and severely rebukes it, in order effectually to eradicate their prejudice.

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And Peter too, hearing this, joins in the feint, as if he had erred, that they might be corrected by means of the rebuke
administered to him.... The whole difficulty was removed by Peters submitting in silence to the imputation of hypocrisy....
Observe how [Paul] has resolved the matter to a necessary absurdity.
St Augustine of Hippo, Letter 28, to Jerome (394): I have been reading also some writings ascribed to you, on the
Epistles of the Apostle Paul. In reading your exposition of the Epistle to the Galatians,... most disastrous consequences must
follow upon our believing that anything false is found in the sacred books: that is to say, that the men by whom the Scripture
has been given to us and committed to writing, did put down in these books anything false.... For if you once admit into such
a high sanctuary of authority one false statement as made in the way of duty, there will not be left a single sentence of those
books which, if appearing to any one difficult in practice or hard to believe, may not by the same fatal rule be explained
away, as a statement in which intentionally and under a sense of duty, the author declared what was not true.... If indeed Peter
seemed to (Paul) to be doing what was right, and if notwithstanding, he, in order to soothe troublesome opponents, both said
and wrote that Peter did what was wrongif we say thus,... nowhere in the sacred books shall the authority of pure truth
stand sure. || Letter 40, to Jerome (397): If it be possible for men to say and believe that, after introducing his narrative with
these words, The things which I write unto you, behold, before God, I lie not, the apostle (Paul) lied when he said of Peter
and Barnabas, I saw that they walked not uprightly, according to the truth of the gospel,... [then] if they did walk uprightly,
Paul wrote what was false; and if he wrote what was false here, when did he say what was true? || The Harmony of the
Gospels, III.25.71 (400): The statement which Paul gives ... runs thus: He was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve; after that
He was seen of above five hundred brethren at once. And thus it is not made clear who these twelve were, just as we are not
informed who these five hundred were.... For now the apostle might speak of those whom the Lord designated apostles, not
as the twelve, but as the eleven. Some codices, indeed, contain this very reading. I take that, however, to be an emendation
introduced by men who were perplexed by the text, supposing it to refer to those twelve apostles who, by the time when
Judas disappeared, were really only eleven.
St Jerome, Letter 112, to Augustine (404): Porphyry ... accuses Paul of presumption because he dared to reprove Peter
and rebuke him to his face, and by reasoning convict him of having done wrong; that is to say, of being in the very fault
which he himself, who blamed another for transgressing, had committed.... Oh blessed Apostle Paulwho had rebuked Peter
for hypocrisy, because he withdrew himself from the Gentiles through fear of the Jews who came from Jameswhy are you,
notwithstanding your own doctrine, compelled to circumcise Timothy (Acts 16:3), the son of a Gentile, nay more, a Gentile
himself?
Nestorius, The Bazaar of Heracleides, Fragment 272 (450 AD): Paul preaching: Of the Jews is Christ who was in
flesh. What then? A mere man is Christ, oh blessed Paul?
Anselm of Laon (1117), Gloss on I-Corinthians 15: He was seen by Cephas; prior to the other males, to whom, as
we read in the Gospel, he appeared. Otherwise this would be contrary to the statement that he appeared first to the women.
Peter Abelard, Sic et Non (1120): Writing in reply to St. Augustine, after he had been brought to task by Augustine
concerning the exposition of a certain spot in Pauls Epistle to the Galatians, Jerome said (Epist.112.4), You ask why I have
said in my commentary on Pauls letter to the Galatians that Paul could not have rebuked Peter for what he himself had also
done. And you asserted that the reproof of the Apostle was not merely feigned, but true guidance, and that I ought not to
teach a falsehood. I respond that ... I followed the commentary of Origen. || Letters of Direction (before 1142): We know of
course that when writing to the Thessalonians the Apostle [Paul] sharply rebuked certain idle busybodies by saying that A
man who will not work shall not eat.... But was not Mary sitting idle in order to listen to the words of Christ, while Martha
was ... grumbling rather enviously about her sisters repose?
Tales from the Old French, Of the Churl who Won Paradise, (circa 1200): How is this, Don Paul of the bald pate, are
you now so wrathful who formerly was so fell a tyrant? Never will there be another so cruel; Saint Stephen paid dear for it
when you had him stoned to death. Well I know the story of your life; thru you many a brave man died, but in the end God
gave you a good big blow. Have we not had to pay for the bargain and the buffet? Ha, what a divine and what a saint! Do you
think I know you not?
St Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I-II, Q.103, Art.4, Reply Obj.2 (1272): According to Jerome, Peter [in Gal
2:6-14] withdrew himself from the Gentiles by pretense, in order to avoid giving scandal to the Jews, of whom he was the
Apostle; hence he did not sin at all in acting thus. On the other hand, Paul in like manner made a pretense of blaming him, in
order to avoid scandalizing the Gentiles, whose Apostle he was. But Augustine disapproves of this solution.
John Duns Scotus, Summa Theologica, III.55.1, Obj.2 (ed. Jerome of Montefortino, 1728-34; based on Opus oxoni-
ense, 1298-99): The order in which Christs resurrection is related to have been made known, seems inappropriate. For it is
presented as having been revealed firstly to Mary Magdalene, and that through her the Apostles learned that Christ was alive;
but the recorded command of the Apostle in I-Tim 2 is well-known, saying: I do not permit a woman to teach.
Desiderius Erasmus, In Praise of Folly (1509): There are many things in St. Paul that thwart themselves.... I was lately
myself at a theological dispute, for I am often there, when one was demanding what authority there was in Holy Writ that
commands heretics to be convinced by fire rather than reclaimed by argument; a crabbed old fellow, and one whose super-
cilious gravity spoke him at least a doctor, answered in a great fume that Saint Paul had decreed it, who said, Reject him that
is a heretic, after once or twice admonishing [him].
Sta Teresa of Avila, Accounts of Conscience, XVI (1571): It seemed to me that, concerning what St. Paul says about

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the confinement of womenwhich has been stated to me recently, and even previously I had heard that this would be the
will of God[the Lord] said to me: Tell them not to follow only one part of the Scripture, to look at others, and [see] if they
will perchance be able to tie my hands.
Blaise Pascal, Penses, 673 (1660): Saint Paul ... speaks of [marriage] to the Corinthians [I-Cor 7] in a way which is a
snare.
Sor Juana Ins de la Cruz, Reply to Sor Filotea de la Cruz (1691): This should be considered by those who, bound to
Let women keep silence in the Church [I-Cor 14:34], say that it is blasphemy for women to learn and teach, as if it were not
the Apostle himself who said The elder women ... teaching the good [Tit 2:3].... I would want those interpreters and
expositors of Saint Paul to explain to me how they understand that passage Let the women keep silence in the Church....
Because Saint Pauls proposition is absolute, and encompasses all women not excepting saints, as also were in their time
Martha and Mary,... Mary mother of Jacob, Salome, and many other women that there were in the fervor of the early Church,
and [Paul] does not except them [from his prohibition].
John Locke, The Reasonableness of Christianity (1695): It is not in the epistles we are to learn what are the
fundamental articles of faith, where they are promiscuously and without distinction mixed with other truths.... We shall find
and discern those great and necessary points best in the preaching of our Savior and the apostles ... out of the history of the
evangelists.... And what that was, we have seen already, out of the history of the evangelists, and the acts; where they are
plainly laid down, so that nobody can mistake them.... If all, or most of the truths declared in the epistles, were to be received
and believed as fundamental articles, what then became of those christians who were fallen asleep (as St. Paul witnesses in
his first to the Corinthians, many were) before these things in the epistles were revealed to them? Most of the epistles not
being written till above twenty years after our Saviours ascension, and some after thirty.... Nobody can add to these
fundamental articles of faith.
Matthew Henry, Exposition of the New Testament, vol. V (1721): Paul took [Timothy] and circumcised him, or
ordered it to be done (Acts 16:1-3). This was strange. Had not Paul opposed those with all his might that were for imposing
circumcision upon the Gentile converts? Had he not at this time the decrees of the council at Jerusalem with him, which
witnessed against it? He had, and yet circumcised Timothy.
Benjamin Franklin, Pennsylvania Gazette (10 April 1735): A virtuous heretic shall be saved before a wicked Chris-
tian.
Thomas Morgan, The Moral Philosopher (1737-40): St. Paul then, it seems, preachd another and quite different Gos-
pel from what was preachd by Peter and the other Apostles.
Peter Annet, Critical Examination of the Life of St. Paul (letter to Gilbert West, 1746): We should never finish, were
we to relate all the contradictions which are to be found in the writings attributed to St. Paul.... Generally speaking it is St.
Paul ... that ought to be regarded as the true founder of Christian theology,... which from its foundation has been incessantly
agitated by quarrels [and] divisions.
Emanuel Swedenborg, A Continuation of the Last Judgment (1763) & The True Christian Religion (1771): He seated
himself at the table and continued his writing, as if he were not a dead body, and this on the subject of justification by faith
alone and so on, for several days, and writing nothing whatever concerning charity. As the angels perceived this, he was
asked through messengers why he did not write about charity also. He replied that there was nothing of the Church in charity,
and if that were to be received as in any way an essential attribute of the Church, man would also ascribe to himself the merit
of justification and consequently of salvation, and so also he would rob faith of its spiritual essence. He said these things
arrogantly, but he did not know that he was dead [Jas 2:26] and that the place to which he had been sent was not Heaven.
Charles Churchill, The Conference, Poems (1763): May I (can worse disgrace on manhood fall?) be ... baptized a
Paul; may I (though to his service deeply tied by sacred oaths, and now by will allied), with false, feigned zeal an injured God
defend, and use his name for some base private end!
Voltaire, Paul, Dictionnaire philosophique portatif (Chez Varberg edition, Amsterdam 1765): Paul did not join the
nascent society of the Christians, which at that time was half-Jewish.... Is it possible to excuse Paul for having reprimanded
Peter?... What would be thought today of a man who intended to live at our expense, he and his woman, judge us, punish us,
and confound the guilty with the innocent?
Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, I.15.2 (1776): Judaizing Christians seem to
have argued ... from the divine origin of the Mosaic law ... that if the Being, who is the same through all eternity, had
designed to abolish those sacred rites which had served to distinguish his chosen people, the repeal of them would have been
no less clear and solemn than their first promulgation: that, instead of those frequent declarations, which either suppose or
assert the perpetuity of the Mosaic religion, it would have been represented as a provisionary scheme intended to last only to
the coming of the Messiah, who should instruct mankind in a more perfect mode of faith and of worship: that the Messiah
himself, and his disciples who conversed with him on earth, instead of authorizing by their example the most minute
observances of the Mosaic law, would have published to the world the abolition of those useless and obsolete ceremonies.
Juan Josef Hol, The Book of Chilam Balam of Chumayel (compiled by Hol in his native Mayan language 1782, 3rd
Spanish edition by the UNAM 1973): Only in the crazed times, through the mad priests, did it happen that sadness entered
into us, that Christianity entered us. Because these same Christians were those who brought here the true God; but this
was the beginning of our misery, the beginning of the taxes, the beginning of alms, the cause from which arose hidden

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discord, the beginning of the battles with firearms, the beginning of the outrages, the beginning of the plundering of every-
thing, the beginning of slavery for debt, the beginning of debts glued to ones back, the beginning of the continuous quar-
reling, the beginning of suffering,... the Antichrist upon the Earth, tiger of the villages, wildcat of the villages, leech on the
poor [American] Indian. But the day will arrive when the tears of their eyes reach unto God, and the justice of God comes
down upon the world in a single blow.... Brothers, little brothers, sons of servants come to the world! When the King comes
and is recognized, the face of the Son of God will be crowned. And the Bishop, which is called the Holy Inquisition, will
come before Saul to beg concord with the Christians, so that oppression will cease and misery will end.
Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason (1794): That manufacturer of quibbles, St. Paul,... [wrote] a collection of letters
under the name of epistles.... Out of the matters contained in those books,... the church has set up a system of religion very
contradictory to the character of the person whose name it bears. It has set up a religion of pomp and of revenue, in pretended
imitation of a person whose life was humility and poverty.
Red Jacket (Chief of the Iroquois Tribe in New York), Address to a Christian Missionary (1805): Brother: Listen to
what we say. There was a time when our forefathers owned this great island. Their seats extended from the rising to the
setting of the sun. The Great Spirit had made [all this] for the use of the Indians,... because He loved them.... But an evil day
came upon us. Your forefathers crossed the great waters and landed on this island.... They called us brothers. We believed
them, and gave them a large seat.... Brother: Our seats were once large, and yours very small. You have now become a great
people, and we have scarcely a place left to spread our blankets. You have got our country, but you are not satisfied; you
want to force your religion upon us.... You say that you are right, and we are lost. How do you know this to be true? We
understand that your religion is written in a book. ... Brother: You say there is but one way to worship and serve the Great
Spirit. If there is but one religion, why do you white people differ so much about it? Why not all agree, as you can all read the
book?
Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Characteristics of the Present Age (1806): [The] Christian System ... [is] a degenerate form of
Christianity, and the authorship of which ... [must be] ascribed to the Apostle Paul.
Thomas Jefferson, Letter to William Short (1820): Paul was the ... first corrupter of the doctrines of Jesus.
Jeremy Bentham, Not Paul But Jesus (1823): It rests with every professor of the religion of Jesus to settle with
himself, to which of the two religions, that of Jesus or that of Paul, he will adhere.
Victor Hugo, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, (1831): So, good brother, you refuse to give me a penny to buy a crust
from a baker? | Qui non laborat non manducet [II-Thes 3:10].
Ferdinand Christian Baur, The Christ Party in the Corinthian Church, the Opposition between Petrine and Pauline
Christianity in the Ancient Church, and the Apostle Peter in Rome (1831): What kind of authority can there be for an
Apostle who, unlike the other Apostles, had never been prepared for the Apostolic office in Jesus own school but had only
later dared to claim the Apostolic office on the basis of his own authority? || The Church History of the First Three Centuries
(1853): The only question comes to be how the Apostle Paul appears in his Epistles to be so indifferent to the historical facts
of the life of Jesus.... He bears himself but little like a disciple who has received the doctrines and the principles which he
preaches from the Master whose name he bears.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Lords Supper (1832): It does not appear that the opinion of St. Paul, all things
considered, ought to alter our opinion derived from the evangelists.
Sren Kierkegaard, Letter to Peter Wilhelm Lund (1.VI.1835): In Christianity itself there are contradictions so great
that they prevent an unobstructed view. || The Journals (1849): In Christ the religious is completely present-tense; in Paul it is
already on the way to becoming doctrine. One can imagine the rest!... This trend has been kept up for God knows how many
centuries. || (1850) When Jesus Christ lived, he was indeed the prototype. The task of faith is ... to imitate Christ, become a
disciple. Then Christ dies. Now, through the Apostle Paul, comes a basic alteration.... He draws attention away from
imitation and fixes it decisively upon the death of Christ the Atoner. || (1854) What Luther failed to realize is that the true
situation is that the Apostle [Paul] has already degenerated by comparison with the Gospel. || (1855) It becomes the disciple
who decides what Christianity is, not the master, not Christ but Paul,... [who] threw Christianity away completely, turning it
upside down, getting it to be just the opposite of what it is in the [original] Christian proclamation. || For Self-Examination
Recommended to the Present Age, I (1851): Gods Word is indeed the mirrorbut, butoh, how enormously complicated
strictly speaking, how much belongs to Gods Word? Which books are authentic? || My Task, The Moment (1.IX.1855):
If in the apostle [Paul]s proclamation there is even the slightest thing that could pertain to what has become the sophistry
corruptive of all true Christianity, then I must raise an outcry lest the sophists summarily cite the apostle. It is of great
importance ... to correct the enormous confusion Luther caused by inverting the relation and actually criticizing Christ by
means of Paul, the Master by means of the follower.... What I have done is to hold Christs proclamation alongside the
apostles.
George Henry Borrow, The Bible in Spain (1843): It was scarcely possible to make an assertion in their hearing
without receiving a flat contradiction, especially when religious subjects were brought on the carpet. It is false, they would
say; Saint Paul, in such a chapter and in such a verse, says exactly the contrary.
Herman Melville, Typee (1846): Better will it be for them for ever to remain the happy and innocent heathens and
barbarians that they now are, than, like the wretched inhabitants of the Sandwich Islands [Hawaii], to enjoy the mere name of
Christians without experiencing any of the vital operations of true religion, whilst, at the same time, they are made the

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victims of the worst vices and evils of civilized life.... Ill-fated people! I shudder when I think of the change a few years will
produce in their paradisaical abode; and probably when the most destructive vices, and the worst attendances on civilization,
shall have driven all peace and happiness from the valley, [it will be] proclaim[ed] to the world that the Marquesas Islands
have been converted to Christianity!... [Similarly,] the Anglo-Saxon hive have extirpated Paganism from the greater part of
the North American continent; but with it they have likewise extirpated the greater portion of the Red race.
Henry David Thoreau, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849): Why need Christians be still intolerant
and superstitious? ... In all my wanderings I never came across the least vestige of authority for these things.... It is necessary
not to be Christian to appreciate the beauty and significance of the life of Christ.... It would be a poor story to be prejudiced
against the Life of Christ because the book has been edited by Christians. || Journal (1 Jan 1858): There are many words
which are genuine and indigenous and have their root in our natures.... There are also a great many words which are spurious
and artificial, and can only be used in a bad sense, since the thing they signify is not fair and substantialsuch as the church,
the judiciary,... etc. etc. They who use them do not stand on solid ground. It is vain to try to preserve them by attaching other
words to them [such] as the true church, etc. It is like towing a sinking ship with a canoe.
Benjamin Jowett, The Epistles of St. Paul to the Thessalonians, Galatians and Romans (1855): Our conception of the
Apostolical age is necessarily based on the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles of St. Paul. It is in vain to search
ecclesiastical writings for further information.... Confining ourselves, then, to the original sources, we cannot but be struck by
the fact, that of the first eighteen years after the day of Pentecost, hardly any account is preserved to us.... It seems as if we
had already reached the second stage in the history of the Apostolic Church, without any precise knowledge of the first.
Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit (1857): There was the dreary Sunday of his childhood, when he sat with his hands
before him, scared out of his senses by a horrible tract which commenced business with the poor child by asking him, why he
was going to perdition?,... and which, for the further attraction of his infant mind, had a parenthesis in every other line with
some such hiccoughing reference as 2 Ep.Thess. c.iii v.6 & 7 [Keep away from any brother who travels about in idleness].
John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (1859): The Gospel always refers to a pre-existing morality,... the Old Testament.... St.
Paul, a declared enemy to this Judaical mode of interpreting the doctrine ... of his Master, equally assumes a pre-existing
morality, namely that of the Greeks and Romans;... even to the extent of giving an apparent sanction to slavery.
Ernest Renan, Saint Paul (1869): True Christianity, which will last forever, comes from the Gospels, not from the
epistles of Paul. The writings of Paul have been a danger and a hidden rock, the causes of the principal defects of Christian
theology.
Feodor Dostoyevsky, The Diary of a Writer (1880): If slavery prevailed in the days of the Apostle Paul, this was
precisely because the churches which originated then were not yet perfect, as we perceive from the Epistles of the Apostle
himself. However, those members of the congregations who, individually, attained perfection no longer owned or could have
had slaves, because these became brethren, and a brother, a true brother, cannot have a brother as his slave. || The Brothers
Karamazov (1880): This child born of the son of the devil and of a holy woman:... they baptized him Paul.
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Dawn (1881): The story of one of the most ambitious and obtrusive of souls, of a head as
superstitious as it was crafty, the story of the Apostle Paulwho knows this, except a few scholars? Without this strange
story, however, without the confusions and storms of such a head, such a soul, there would be no Christianity.
Leo Tolstoy, My Religion (1884): The separation between the doctrine of life and the explanation of life began with the
preaching of Paul who knew not the ethical teachings set forth in the Gospel of Matthew, and who preached a metaphisico-
cabalistic theory entirely foreign to Christ; and this separation was perfected in the time of Constantine, when it was found
possible to clothe the whole pagan organization of life in a Christian dress, and without changing it to call it Christianity.
Adolf von Harnack, History of Dogma, I (1885): The Pauline Gospel is not identical with the original Gospel.... The
empty grave on the third day ... is directly excluded by the way in which Paul has portrayed the resurrection (1 Cor. XV)....
Paul knows nothing of an Ascension.... Every tendency which courageously disregards spurious traditions, is compelled to
turn to the Pauline Epistleswhich, on the one hand, present such a profound type of Christianity, and on the other, darken
and narrow the judgment about the preaching of Christ himself.
James George Frazer, The Golden Bough (1890): If Christianity was to conquer the world, it could not do so except by
relaxing a little the exceedingly strict principles of its Founder.
Frederick Engels, On the History of Early Christianity (1894): Attempts have been made to conceive ... all the
messages [of Johns Rev/Ap] as directed against Paul, the false Apostle.... The so-called Epistles of Paul ... are not only
extremely doubtful but also totally contradictory.
William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (Gifford Lectures, 1901): This is the religious melancholy and
conviction of sin that have played so large a part in the history of Protestant Christianity.... As Saint Paul says: self-
loathing, self-despair, an unintelligible and intolerable burden ... [a] typical [case] of discordant personality, with melan-
choly in the form of self-condemnation and sense of sin.
William Wrede, Paul (1904): The obvious contradictions in the three accounts [of Pauls conversion in Ac 9/22/26] are
enough to arouse distrust of all that goes beyond this kernel.... The moral majesty of Jesus, his purity and piety, his ministry
among his people, his manner as a prophet, the whole concrete ethical-religious content of his earthly life, signifies for Pauls
Christologynothing whatever.... If we do not wish to deprive both figures of all historical distinctness, the name disciple
of Jesus has little applicability to Paul.... Jesus or Paul: this alternative characterizes, at least in part, the religious and

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theological warfare of the present day.
Albert Schweitzer, The Quest for the Historical Jesus (1906): Paul ... did not desire to know Christ after the flesh....
Those who want to find a way from the preaching of Jesus to early Christianity are conscious of the peculiar difficulties
raised.... Paul shows us with what complete indifference the earthly life of Jesus was regarded by primary Christianity. ||
Paul and His Interpreters (1912): The system of the Apostle of the Gentiles stands over against the teaching of Jesus as
something of an entirely different character, and does not create the impression of having arisen out of it.... It is impossible
for a Hellenized Paulinism to subsist alongside of a primitive Christianity which shared the Jewish eschatological expec-
tations.... To the problem of Paulinism belong ... questions which have not yet found a solution:... the relation of the Apostle
to the historical Jesus ... and towards the [Mosaic] Law.... He does not appeal to the Master even where it might seem
inevitable to do so.... It is as though he held that between the present world-period and that in which Jesus lived and taught
there exists no link of connection.... What Jesus thought about the matter is ... indifferent to him.... Critics [have] demanded
of theology proof that the canonical Paul and his Epistles belonged to early Christianity; and the demand was justified. || Out
of My Life and Thought (1931): The rapid diffusion of Pauls ideas can be attributed to his belief that the death of Christ
signified the end of the [Mosaic] Law. In the course of one or two generations this concept became the common property of
the Christian faith, although it stood in contradiction to the tradition teaching represented by the Apostles at Jerusalem. || The
Mysticism of St. Paul (1931): What is the significance for our faith and for our religious life, of the fact that the Gospel of
Paul is different from the Gospel of Jesus?... The attitude which Paul himself takes up towards the Gospel of Jesus is that he
does not repeat it in the words of Jesus, and does not appeal to its authority.... The fateful thing is that the Greek, the Catholic
and the Protestant theologies all contain the Gospel of Paul in a form which does not continue the Gospel of Jesus, but
displaces it.
Abdul-Bah (son of Bahullh), Some Answered Questions (1908): Paul permitted even the eating of strangled
animals, those sacrificed to idols, and blood, and only maintained the prohibition of fornication. So in chapter 4, verse 14 of
his Epistle to the Romans.... Also Titus, chapter 1, verse 15.... Now [according to Paul] this change, these alterations and this
abrogation are due to the impossibility of comparing the time of Christ with that of Moses. The conditions and requirements
in the latter period were entirely changed and altered. The former laws were, therefore, abrogated.
Mark Twain, Letters from the Earth (1909): Paul ... advised against sexual intercourse altogether. A great change from
the divine view. || Notebooks (date?): If Christ were here now, there is one thing he would not bea Christian.
Jos Ortega y Gasset, A Polemic (1910): Between remembering Jesus as did St Peter, to thinking about Jesus as did
St Paul, stands nothing less than theology. St Paul was the first theologian; that is to say, the first man who, of the real Jesus
concrete, individualized, resident of a certain village, with a genuine accent and customsmade a possible, rational Jesus,
thus adapted so that all men and not only the Jews could enter into the new faith. In philosophical terms, St Paul objectifies
Jesus.
Gerald Friedlander, The Jewish Sources of the Sermon on the Mount (1911): Paul has surely nothing to do with the
Sermon on the Mount.... The Sermon says: Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheeps clothing, but inwardly are
ravening wolves (Matt.vii.15). This is generally understood as a warning against untrustworthy leaders in religion.... Does
the verse express the experience of the primitive Church? Might it not be a warning against Paul and his followers?
Miguel de Unamuno, The Tragic Sense of Life (1913): Paul had not personally known Jesus, and hence he discovered
him as Christ.... The important thing for him was that Christ became man and died and was resurrected, and not what he did
in his lifenot his ethical work as a teacher. || The Agony of Christianity (1931): During Christs lifetime, Paul would never
have followed him.
George Bernard Shaw, Androcles and the Lion, Introduction (1915): There is not one word of Pauline Christianity in
the characteristic utterances of Jesus.... There has really never been a more monstrous imposition perpetrated than the
imposition of Pauls soul upon the Soul of Jesus.... It is now easy to understand why the Christianity of Jesus failed com-
pletely to establish itself politically and socially, and was easily suppressed by the police and the Church, whilst Paulinism
overran the whole western civilized world, which was at that time the Roman Empire, and was adopted by it as its official
faith. || Everybodys Political Whats What? (1944): A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the
support of Paul.
Henry Louis Mencken, The Jazz Webster, A Book of Burlesques (1916): ArchbishopA Christian ecclesiastic of a
rank superior to that attained by Christ.
Martin Buber, The Holy Way (1918): The man who, in transmitting Judaism to the peoples, brought about its
breakup,... this violator of the spirit,... [was] Saul, the man from Tarsus.... He transmitted Jesus teaching ... to the nations,
handing them the sweet poison of faith, a faith that was to disdain works, exempt the faithful from realization, and establish
dualism in the [Christian] world. It is the Pauline era whose death agonies we today [in World War I] are watching with
transfixed eyes. || Two Types of Faith (1948): Not merely the Old Testament belief and the living faith of post-Biblical
Judaism are opposed to Paul, but also the Jesus of the Sermon on the Mount.... One must see Jesus apart from his historical
connection with Christianity.... It is Peter, [not Paul,] who represents the unforgettable recollection of the conversations of
Jesus with the Disciples in Galilee.
Thomas Edward Lawrence, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1919): Christianity was a hybrid, except in its first root not
essentially Semitic.

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 Carl Gustav Jung, The Psychological Foundations of Belief in Spirits (1919): Sauls ... fanatical resistance to
Christianity,... as we know from the Epistles, was never entirely overcome. || A Psychological Approach to the Dogma of the
Trinity (1940): It is frankly disappointing to see how Paul hardly ever allows the real Jesus of Nazareth to get a word in.
Herbert George Wells, The Outline of History (1920): St. Paul and his successors added to or completed or imposed
upon or substituted another doctrine foras you may prefer to thinkthe plain and profoundly revolutionary teachings of
Jesus, by expounding ... a salvation which could be obtained very largely by belief and formalities, without any serious
disturbance of the believers ordinary habits and occupations.
James Joyce, Ulysses (1922): Peter and Paul. More interesting if you understood what it was all about.... Robbing Peter
to pay Paul.
Isaac Babel, Sir Apolek, Red Cavalry Stories (1923): Saint Paul, a timorous cripple with the shaggy black beard of a
village apostate.
Joseph Klausner, Jesus of Nazareth, III.3 (1926): In all Pauls writings we find no reliable historical facts about the life
and work of Jesus.... He was not one of Jesus disciples nor, apparently, had he ever seen him while he was on earth; in the
latter event he must have been subservient to James, the brother of Jesus, to Peter and the other Apostles. || From Jesus to
Paul, VI (1943): Saul was the real founder of Christianity as a new religion.... The disciples and brethren of Jesus who were
intimate with the crucified Messiah during his lifetime and had received instruction, parables, and promises from his own
lips, would reproach Paul in effect thus: You are not a true apostle, and in vain do you on your own authority set aside the
ceremonial laws; for you did not attend the Messiah, you were not intimate with him, and you cannot know his teaching
firsthand.... [Regarding] the vision on the road to Damascus,... we have here an attack of falling sickness or epilepsy.... We
find in him also the characteristics of a thorough melancholiac.... There is almost no abusive name which Paul does not give
to his opponents. They are false brethren, false apostles, hypocrites and dissemblers.... The whole apostleship of Paul
is based on the heavenly vision which he saw on the road to Damascus.... Paul was far from being a saint.
Rudolf Bultmann, Jesus and the Word (1926): The Church ... could not possibly have taken for granted the loyal
adherence to the [Mosaic] Law and defended it against Paul, if Jesus had combated the authority of the Law. Jesus did not
attack the Law, but assumed its authority and interpreted it... It was some time after his death when Paul and other Hellenistic
missionaries preached to the Gentiles a gospel apart from the Law.... Jesus desires no ... sexual asceticism. The ideal of
celibacy indeed entered Christianity early; we find it already in the churches of Paul. But it is entirely foreign to Jesus. || The
Significance of the Historical Jesus for the Theology of Paul (1929): It is most obvious that [Paul] does not appeal to the
words of the Lord in support of his strictly theological, anthropological and soteriological views.... When the essentially
Pauline conceptions are considered, it is clear that there Paul is not dependent on Jesus. Jesus teaching isto all intents and
purposesirrelevant for Paul.
Franz Kafka, The Castle (1926): Barnabas is certainly not an official, not even one in the lowest category.... One
shouldnt suddenly send an inexperienced youngster like Barnabas ... into the Castle, and then expect a truthful account of
everything from him, interpret each single word of his as if it were a revelation, and base ones own lifes happiness on the
interpretation. Nothing could be more mistaken.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Divine Milieu (1927): The mystical Christ, the universal Christ of St. Paul, has
neither meaning nor value in our eyes except as an expansion of the Christ who was born of Mary and who died on the cross.
The former essentially draws his fundamental quality of undeniability and concreteness from the latter. However far we may
be drawn into the divine spaces opened up to us by Christian mysticism, we never depart from the Jesus of the gospels.
Jos Carlos Maritegui, Seven Interpretive Essays on Peruvian Reality (1928): The missionaries did not impose the
Gospel; they imposed the cult, the liturgy.... The Roman Church can consider itself the legitimate heir of the Roman
Empire.... This compromise in its origin extends from Catholicism to all Christendom.
Mahatma Gandhi, Discussion on Fellowship, Young India (1928): I draw a great distinction between the Sermon on
the Mount and the Letters of Paul. They are a graft on Christs teaching, his own gloss apart from Christs own experience.
Kahil Gibran, Jesus the Son of Man (1928): This Paul is indeed a strange man. His soul is not the soul of a free man.
He speaks not of Jesus nor does he repeat His Words. He would strike with his own hammer upon the anvil in the Name of
One whom he does not know.
Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West (II, 1928): Paul had for the Jesus-communities of Jerusalem a scarcely
veiled contempt.... Jesus is the Redeemer and Paul is his Prophetthis is the whole content of his message.
John Langdon-Davies, A Short History of Women (1928): It was through [St. Paul] that the offensive attitude towards
women was finally expressed in the Catholic Church.
Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms (1929): That Saint Paul.... Hes the one who makes all the trouble.
Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism (Second Series, 1933): Te-shan (780-865 [AD]) ... was very learned
in the teaching of the sutra and was extensively read in the commentaries.... He heard of this Zen teaching in the south [of
China], according to which a man could be a Buddha by immediately taking hold of his inmost nature. This he thought could
not be the Buddhas own teaching, but [rather] the Evil-Ones.... Te-shans idea was to destroy Zen if possible.... [His]
psychology reminds us of that of St. Paul.
Walter Bauer, Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity (1934): As far as Paul is concerned, in the Apocalypse
[Rev/Ap 21:14] only the names of the twelve apostles are found on the foundations of the New Jerusalemthere is no room

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for Paul.... For Justin [Martyr, in the mid-second century], everything is based on the gospel tradition.... The name of Paul is
nowhere mentioned by Justin;... not only is his name lacking, but also any congruence with his epistles.... If one may be
allowed to speak rather pointedly, the apostle Paul was the only arch-heretic known to the apostolic age.... We must look to
the circle of the twelve apostles to find the guardians of the most primitive information about the life and preaching of the
Lord.... This treasure lies hidden in the synoptic gospels.
Herbert A.L. Fisher, A History of Europe (1935): Paul of Tarsus ... drew a clear line of division between [the] two
sects.... Christian and Jew sprang apart.
Henry Miller, Black Spring (1936): That maniac St. Paul.
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value (notes from 1937, published 1980): The spring which flows gently and
limpidly in the Gospels seems to have froth on it in Pauls Epistles.... To me its as though I saw human passion here,
something like pride or anger, which is not in tune with the humility of the Gospels.... I want to askand may this be no
blasphemyWhat might Christ have said to Paul?... In the Gospelsas it seems to meeverything is less pretentious,
humbler, simpler. There you find huts; in Paul a church. There all men are equal and God himself is a man; in Paul there is
already something like a hierarchy.
Kenneth Patchen, The Journal of Albion Moonlight (1941): We were proceeding leisurely down the main street in St.
Paul when suddenly, without warning of any kind, an immense octopus wrapped his arms around our car.
Bertrand Russell, An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish (1943): Tobacco ... is not prohibited in the Scriptures, though,
as Samuel Butler pointed out, St. Paul would no doubt have denounced it if he had known of it.
Will Durant, Caesar and Christ (1944): Paul created a theology of which none but the vaguest warrants can be found
in the words of Christ.... Through these interpretations Paul could neglect the actual life and sayings of Jesus, which he had
not directly known.... He had replaced conduct with creed as the test of virtue. It was a tragic change.
Shaw Desmond, Religion in the Postwar World (Oxford University Socratic Club, 1946): Paul taught the opposite of
Jesus.
Paul Schubert, Urgent Tasks for New Testament Research, in H.R. Willoughby (ed.), The Study of the Bible Today
and Tomorrow (1947): As regards Paul and his letters there is no notable agreement [among modern theologians] on any
major issue.
Robert Frost, A Masque of Mercy (1947): Paul: hes in the Bible too. He is the fellow who theologized Christ almost
out of Christianity. Look out for him.
Frank Harris, My Life and Loves (vol.3, 1949): Christianity, mainly because of Paul, has attacked the sexual desire and
has tried to condemn it root and branch.
Herbert J. Muller, The Uses of the Past (1952): Saul of Tarsus, who became St. Paul,... knew Jesus only by hearsay,
and rarely referred to his human life.... Paul preached a gospel about Jesus that was not taught by the Jesus of the synoptic
Gospels.... Setting himself against [the] other disciples,... he was largely responsible for the violent break with Judaism.... He
contributed a radical dualism of flesh and spirit unwarranted by the teachings of Jesus.
Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex (1953): St. Paul enjoined self-effacement and discretion upon women.... In a
religion that holds the flesh accursed, woman becomes the devils most fearful temptation.
Federico Fellini, La Strada (1954): Where are we? | In Rome. Thats St. Pauls.| Then were joining the circus?
Nikos Kazantzakis, The Last Temptation of Christ (1955): The door opened. A squat, fat hunchback, still young, but
bald, stood on the threshold. His eyes were spitting fire.... Are you Saul?, Jesus asked, horrified.... I am Paul. I was saved
glory be to God!and now Ive set out to save the world.... My fine lad, Jesus replied, Ive already come back from
where youre headed.... Did you see this resurrected Jesus of Nazareth?, Jesus bellowed. Did you see him with your own
eyes? What was he like? A flash of lightninga flash of lightning which spoke. Liar!... What blasphemies you utter!
What effronteries! What lies! Is it with such lies, swindler, that you dare to save the world? Now it was Pauls turn to
explode. Shut your shameless mouth!, he shouted.... I dont give a hoot about whats true and whats false, or whether I
saw him or didnt see him.
Charles Seltman, Women in Antiquity (1956): This man of Tarsus, being somewhat hostile both to women and to
mating, began to advocate both the repression of females and the intemperate practice of perpetual virginity,... greatly
degrading women in the eyes of men.... Nonsensical anti-feminism was due, in the first instance, to Paul of Tarsus.... For Paul
sex was indeed a misfortune withdrawing mans interest from heavenly things.... As the Church increased in influence within
the Roman Empire, it carried along with it the corpus of Pauline writings, and the implicit subordination of the female. The
dislike, even the hatred, of women grew to be pathological.... [Pauls] teaching about women as interpreted by his successors
continues even today to shock thoughtful persons.... The Galilean ... was himself displaced by the Church Militant on earth,
disobedient to Jesus, seeking new ways to power.... It had overthrown the precepts of Jesus. The theology of Love,... having
been recast as Christendom, borrowed from the simpler nature religions Fear as the finest instrument for the attainment of
power.
G. Ernest Wright & Reginald H. Fuller, The Book of the Acts of God (1957): The earliest Church glossed over the
death of Jesus and concentrated its attention on the resurrection,... [whereas] much prominence is given in the Pauline epistles
to the notion that [it was] by his death [that] Christ won the decisive victory over the powers of evil. This mythological

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notion was not a feature of the earliest preaching.... [Furthermore,] both the theology and the practice of baptism underwent a
number of changes. For the primitive Church, baptism had been performed in the name of Jesus, and its benefit defined as the
remission of sins and ... the gift of the Holy Spirit,... [but] St Paul can speak of baptism as a symbolical participation in
Christs death and resurrection;... such ideas have been frequently ascribed to the influence of the mystery religions, in whose
rites the initiate sacramentally shared the fate of the cult deity.... [Moreover,] the Pauline churches were the first to detach the
[eucharistic] rite with the bread and cup from the common meal.... All three synoptic gospels are the products of the non-
Pauline ... churches.
William D. Davies, Paul and Jewish Christianity, in J. Danilou (ed.), Thologie du Judo-Chriantianisme (1958):
Jewish-Christians [opposing Paul] ... must have been a very strong, widespread element in the earliest days of the Church....
They took for granted that the gospel was continuous with Judaism.... According to some scholars, they must have been so
strong that right up to the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70 they were the dominant element in the Christian movement. || The
Apostolic Age and the Life of Paul, Peakes Commentary on the Bible (1962): Of the history of the Church at Jerusalem
between AD 44 and the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70 we know very little.... Attempts at ... minimizing the gulf between Gentile
and Jerusalem Christianity break down on the opposition which the Pauline mission so often encountered from Jewish
Christians.... Acts has so elevated Paul that others who labored have been dwarfed, and any assessment of the rise of Gentile
Christianity must allow for the possible distortion introduced by this concentration of Acts on Paul.... The Epistles and Acts
reveal that Paul came to regard himself ... as the [one and only] Apostle to the Gentiles.
Lawrence Durrell, Clea (1960): For a brief moment [freedom] looked possible, but St. Paul restored ... the iron
handcuffs.
Gershom Scholem, On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism (1960): Paul read the Old Testament against the grain. The
incredible violence with which he did so, shows ... how incompatible his experience was with the meaning of the old books....
The result was the paradox that never ceases to amaze us when we read the Pauline Epistles: on the one hand, the Old
Testament is preserved; on the other, its original meaning is completely set aside. || The Crisis of Tradition in Jewish
Messianism (1968): The religious strategy of Paul ... [is] downright antinomian.
Hans Joachim Schoeps, Paul: The Theology of the Apostle in the Light of Jewish Religious History (English translation
1961): [Drawing a] stark contrast between the religion of the law and the religion of grace,... Paul had lost all understanding
of the character of the Hebraic berith [covenant] as a partnership involving mutual obligations, [and thus] he failed to grasp
the inner meaning of the Mosaic law.
Max Dimont, Jews, God, and History (1962): If Paul had lived today, he might have ended up on a psychiatrists
couch. Throughout his life he was overwhelmed with an all-pervasive sense of guilt which pursued him with relentless
fury.... The custom had been for non-Jewish converts to become Jews first, then be admitted into the Christian sect. Paul felt
that pagans should become Christians directly, without first being converted to Judaism.... Slowly he changed early
Christianity into a new Pauline Christology.... Christianity was no longer a Jewish sect, for Paul had abandoned the Mosaic
tradition.
Nils A. Dahl, The Particularity of the Pauline Epistles as a Problem in the Ancient Church, Neotestamentica et
Patristica: Eine Freundesgabe, Herrn Professor Dr. Oscar Cullman (1962): The particularity of the Pauline Epistles was felt
as a problem, from a time before the Corpus paulinum was published and until it had been incorporated into a complete
canon of New Testament Scripture. Later on, the problem was no longer felt,... when they served as sources for
reconstruction of a general biblical theology or a system of paulinism.
Erich Fromm, The Dogma of Christ (1963): Paul appealed ... to some of the wealthy and educated class, especially
merchants, who by means of their adventures and travels had a decided importance for the diffusion of Christianity.... [This]
had been the religion of a community of equal brothers, without hierarchy or bureaucracy, [but] was converted into the
Church, the reflected image of the absolute monarchy of the Roman Empire.
Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar (1963): The only trouble was, Church, even the Catholic Church, didnt take up the whole of
your life. No matter how much you knelt and prayed, you still had to eat three meals a day and have a job and live in the
world.
William H. McNeill, The Rise of the West (1963): A question which immediately arose in the Christian communities
outside Palestine was whether or not the Mosaic law remained binding. Pauls answer was that Christ had abrogated the Old
Dispensation by opening a new path to salvation. Other followers of Christ held that traditional Jewish custom and law still
remained in force.... Neither Peter and James, the leaders in Jerusalem, nor Paul ... could persuade the other party.
James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time (1963): The real architect of the Christian church was not the disreputable, sun-
baked Hebrew who gave it his name but [rather] the mercilessly fanatical and self-righteous St. Paul.
Georg Strecker, On the Problem of Jewish Christianity, Appendix 1 to Walter Bauer, op.cit. (1964 ed.): Jewish
Christianity, according to the witness of the New Testament, stands at the beginning of the development of church history, so
that it is not the [pauline] gentile Christian ecclesiastical doctrine that represents what is primary, but rather a Jewish Chris-
tian theology.
Jorge Lus Borges, The Theologians (1964): The Historionics ... invoked I-Corinthians 13:12 (For now we see
through a glass, obscurely) in order to demonstrate that everything we see is false. Perhaps contaminated by the Mono-
tonists, they imagined that each person is two persons and that the real one is the other, the one in Heaven.

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 Gilles Quispel, Gnosticism and the New Testament, in J. Philip Hyatt (ed.), The Bible in Modern Scholarship (papers
read at the 100th meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, 1964): The Christian community of Jerusalem ... did not
accept [Pauls] views on the [Mosaic] Law.
Helmut Koester, The Theological Aspects of Primitive Christian Heresy, in James Robinson (ed.), The Future of our
Religious Past (1964): Paul himself stands in the twilight zone of heresy. || Introduction to the New Testament (1980): The
content of Pauls speeches in Acts cannot be harmonized with the theology of Paul as we know it from his letters.... Neither is
it credible that he affirmed repeatedly in his trial that he had always lived as a law-[Torah-]abiding Jew.... From the
beginning of Acts to the martyrdom of Stephen, the central figure in the narrative has been Peter. At this point, however, Paul
is introduced for the first time.... Peter is always presented as an apostle, since he belongs to the circle of the Twelve. But in
Acts 15 Peter is mentioned for the last time, and Luke has nothing to report about his journey to Rome or his martyrdom.
Even more peculiar is the presentation of Paul. He is neither an apostle nor a martyr.... Furthermore, Luke takes great care to
demonstrate that the originator of the proclamation to the gentiles was not Paul (or Barnabas), but Peter. || Ancient Christian
Gospels (1990): One immediately encounters a major difficulty. Whatever Jesus had preached did not become the content of
the missionary proclamation of Paul.... Sayings of Jesus do not play a role in Pauls understanding of the event of salvation....
The Epistle of James also shares with the Sermon on the Mount the rejection of the Pauline thesis that Christ is the end of the
[Mosaic] law. || with Stephen Patterson, The Gospel of Thomas: Does It Contain Authentic Sayings of Jesus?, Bible
Review (1990): Paul did not care at all what Jesus had said.... Had Paul been completely successful, very little of the sayings
of Jesus would have survived.
Lorenzo Turrado, Biblical Commentary by the Professors of Salamanca, VI (1965): The fundamental idea in the
exposition of the Apostle [Paul in Rom 13:1-7] ... is that all authority comes from God, and to disobey them is to disobey
God.... The doctrine maintained here by the Apostle has very grave consequences.... [He does not] consider the case in which
those authorities command things which are unjust.... [Regarding the] incident between Peter and Paul in Antioch [Gal 2:11-
14]: Whatever indeed was wrong in the conduct of Peter?... There were authors, already since Clement of Alexandria, who,
trying to salvage the prestige of Peter, sustained that the Cephas whom St Paul here confronts is not Peter the Apostle, but
rather some other Christian, unknown to us today, with the name Cephas.... Neither does the opinion defended by some Holy
Fathers, that it has to do with feigned rebukes, have any basis,... since St Paul clearly gives the impression that he is speaking
quite seriously to Peter.
Juan Leal, Jos Ignacio Vicentini et alia, The Holy Scripture, Text and Commentary by Professors of the Society of
Jesus (1965), II.301: Pauls solution [regarding Rom 13:1-6] is limited.... St Thomas (In omnes S. Pauli epistolas commen-
taria [Taurini 1924], v.I, p.181) distinguishes three aspects of power: (1) power as suchconsidered thus, power comes from
God; (2) the manner of coming to powerthis can be ordered, or disordered and illicit; (3) the use of powerwhich can be
in conformity with, or contrary to, the precepts of divine justice. Paul considers only the third aspect.
Emil G. Kraeling, The Disciples (1966): The peculiar, unharmonized relationship between Paul and the Twelve that
existed from the beginning was never fully adjusted.... Modern Biblical research in particular has made it difficult to put the
religion of the New Testament (to say nothing of the Bible as a whole) into the straightjacket of Paulinism.
Ronald D. Laing, The Politics of Experience (1967): Two people sit talking. The one (Peter) is making a point to the
other (Paul). He puts his point of view in different ways to Paul for some time, but Paul does not understand.... Paul seems
hard, impervious and cold.
Bruce Vawter, The Four Gospels (1967): We have no authentic information about the activity of most of the Twelve
after the first days of the Church in Jerusalem, but it is likely enough that they remained identified with Jewish Christianity,
particularly, perhaps, with the Galilean Christianity about which we know practically nothing.... This Christianity ... all but
disappeared.
Paul Tillich, A History of Christian Thought (1968): The [Mosaic] law was not evaluated in the negative way in which
we usually do it; for the Jews it was a gift and a joy.... The way of despair ... was the way of people like Paul, Augustine, and
Luther.... Pauls conflict with the Jewish Christians did not have to be continued. Instead of that, the positive elements in the
faith, which could provide an understandable content for the pagans, had to be brought out.
Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God: Creative Mythology (1968): The reign in Europe of that order of unreason,
unreasoning submission to the dicta of authority:... Saint Paul himself had opened the door to such impudent idiocies.
Gnther Bornkamm, Paul (1969): Above all there results the chasm which separates Jesus from Paul and the
conclusion that more than the historical Jesus ... it is Paul who really founded Christianity.... Already during his lifetime Paul
was considered an illegitimate Apostle and a falsifier of the Christian message.... For a long time, Judeo-Christianity rejected
him completely, as a rival to Peter and James, the brother of the Lord.... Paul does not connect immediately with ... [the]
words ... of the earthly Jesus. Everything seems to indicate that he didnt even know them.
David Ben-Gurion, Israel: A Personal History (1971): Jesus probably differed little from many other Jews of his
generation. The new religion was given an anti-Jewish emphasis by Saul,... [who] gave Christianity a new direction. He
sought to uproot Jewish law and commandments, and to eliminate Judaism as a national entity striving to achieve the
Messianic vision of the Prophets.
William Steuart McBirnie, The Search for the Twelve Apostles (1973): Why did Jesus choose only twelve chief
Apostles? Obviously, to correspond to the twelve tribes of Israel.... Paul stoutly maintained that he also was an Apostle.... Yet

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there is no evidence that he was ever admitted to that inner circle of the original Twelve.... Those who expect the Acts to be
the complete early history of Christianity are doomed to disappointment.... The Bible student is soon, and perhaps
unconsciously, caught up in the personal ministry of Paul. Peter, though prominent at first, is later ignored, as the Acts
unfolds for the reader the story of Paul and his friends.... There is absolutely no evidence that Paul ever recognized the
primacy of Peter.
Ronald Brownrigg, The Twelve Apostles (1974): The letters of Paul present a marked contrast to Lukes writings [in
his Gospel and the Acts]. Whereas Luke suggests that the Apostles were a closed corporation of twelve governing the whole
Church, Paul disagrees, claiming his own Apostleship to be as valid as any of the twelve.... Certainly Paul knew no authority
of the twelve.... The qualification for Apostleship, at the election of Matthias [Ac 1:15-26], had been a divinely guided
selection and a constant companionship with Jesus throughout his [active] lifetime.
Elaine H. Pagels, The Gnostic Paul (1975): Two antithetical traditions of Pauline exegesis have emerged from the late
first century through the second. Each claims to be authentic, Christian, and Pauline: but one reads Paul anti-gnostically, the
other gnostically.... Whoever takes account of the total evidence may learn from the debate to approach Pauline exegesis with
renewed openness to the text. || The Gnostic Gospels (1979): One version of this story [of Pauls conversion] says, The men
who were traveling with him stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one; another says the opposite,... Those who
were with me saw the light, but did not hear the voice of the one who was speaking to me.
Paul Johnson, A History of Christianity (1976): The Christ of Paul was not affirmed by the historical Jesus of the
Jerusalem Church.... Writings ... by Christian Jews of the decade of the 50s [AD] present Paul as the Antichrist and the
prime heretic.... The Christology of Paul, which later became the substance of the universal Christian faith,... was predicated
by an external personage whom many members of the Jerusalem Church absolutely did not recognize as an Apostle.
Irving Howe, World of our Fathers (1976): The view that sexual activity is impure or at least suspect, so often an
accompaniment of Christianity, was seldom entertained in the [east-European Jewish] shtetl. Pauls remark that it is better to
marry than to burn would have seemed strange, if not downright impious, to the Jews.
John Morris Roberts, History of the World (1976): The reported devotional ideas of Jesus do not go beyond the Jewish
observances; service in the Temple, together with private prayer, were all that he indicated. In this very real sense, he lived
and died as a Jew.... Fulfillment of the [Mosaic] Law was essential.... The doctrine that Paul taught was new. He rejected the
Law (as Jesus had never done),... and this was to shatter the mold of Jewish thought within which the faith had been born.
James M. Robinson, The Nag Hammadi Codices (1977): The New Testament Gospels present the resurrected Christ as
having a body that appears to be a human bodyhe is taken for a gardener, or for a traveler to Emmaus; he eats; his wounds
can be touched.... Paul insists again and again that, although he was not a disciple during Jesus lifetime, he did witness a
genuine appearance of the resurrected Christ. But his picture of a resurrection body is a bright light, a heavenly body like
a sun, star or planet, not like an earthly body. So the book of Acts, while recounting in detail Pauls encounter with Jesus as a
blinding light, presents it as if it were hardly more than a conversion. For the author [of Acts] places it well outside of the
period of resurrection appearances, which he had limited to forty days.
Edward Schillebeeckx, Christ (1977): There is a difference between the theology of the early Jewish Christian congre-
gations in Jerusalem which are oriented on Jesus of Nazareth, and Pauline theology, which knows only the crucified.
Mircea Eliade, History of Beliefs and Religious Ideas (1978): Paul would have to be seen as fatally opposed to the
Judeo-Christians of Jerusalem,... a conflict of which Paul and the Acts (Gal 2:7-10, Acts 15:29) give contradictory versions.
Barbara Tuchman, A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century (1978): Of all mankinds ideas, the equating of
sex with sin has left the greatest train of trouble.... In Christian theology, via St. Paul, it conferred permanent guilt on
mankind.... Its sexual context was largely formulated by St. Augustine, whose spiritual wrestlings set Christian dogma
thereafter in opposition to mans most powerful instinct.
Thomas Maras, The Contradictions in the New Testament (1979): In disagreement with [Matthew and Luke], who
wish him to be a direct Son of God, Paul says to us [in Rom 1:3-4] that in the flesh Jesus is the descendent of David, and only
in power is the Son of God.
Patrick Henry, New Directions in New Testament Study (1979): There remains in the popular mind a strong
suspicion ... that Paul corrupted Christianity (or even founded a different religion).... Jesus [was] a teacher in the mainstream
of Jewish prophetic piety,... while Paul ... takes the irrevocable step away from Judaism of rejecting the [Mosaic] law.... Paul
imported into the Christian community a form of religion characteristic of the mysteries,... religious movements of initiation
into secret rites and esoteric knowledge.
Og Mandino, The Christ Commission (1980): The disciples and other intimate followers of Jesus are all pious Jews.
Juan Luis Segundo, The Person of Today confronting Jesus of Nazareth (1982): Within less than thirty years of the
events narrated by the Synoptics concerning the life and proclamation, death and resurrection of Jesus, Paul permits himself
to compose a long and complex exposition of what this means, retaining, apparently, only the two final specific events, the
death and the resurrection. Jesus words are not cited (with the exception of those pronounced over the bread and wine at the
Last Supper), his teachings are not remembered. The key terms have disappeared which he employed to designate himself,
his mission and his immediate audience: the Son of Man, the Kingdom of God, the poor.
Abba Eban, Civilization and the Jews (WNET Heritage video #3, 1984): Those who followed the teachings of Jesus
were known among other Jews as Nazarenes. In the beginning, the Nazarene sect was completely Jewish.... Although this had

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been a Jewish sect, Paul welcomed new followers without having them convert to Judaism.
Jrgen Moltmann, Political Theology [&] Ethical Theology (1984): The theology of Paul and that of the Reformation
interpreted the death of Jesus theologically as a victim of the law [of Israel]; and they made it very clear that the resurrection
and exaltation of Christ signified the abolition of [that] law with all its demands.... [But] Jesus did not die by stoning, but
rather by Roman execution.
Yigael Yadin, The Temple Scrollthe Longest Dead Sea Scroll, Biblical Archaeology Review (Sept/Oct 1984): We
must distinguish between the various layers, or strata, to use an archaeological term, of early Christianity. The theology, the
doctrines and the practices of Jesus, John the Baptist and Paul ... are not the same.
Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh & Henry Lincoln, The Messianic Legacy (1986): In what ... does Christianity
reside? In what Jesus taught? Or in what Paul taught? Except by sleight of logic and distortion of historical fact, the two
positions cannot be harmonized.
James Michener, Legacy (1987): Women ... will no longer kowtow to the fulminations of St. Paul.
Bruce Metzger, The Canon of the New Testament (1987): According to [some] scholars the presence of contradictions
between New Testament books ... makes it necessary to establish a critical canon.... For example, the eschatology of Luke-
Acts cannot, it is said, be harmonized with Pauls eschatology.... Again, the outlook on the Old Testament law in the Epistle
to the Romans certainly appears to be different from the outlook in Matt. v.18.... Furthermore, the Epistle of James attacks
the Pauline doctrine of justification by faith alone. For these and similar reasons, it is argued,... there [is] no unity within the
canon.
Watchtower Bible & Tract Society, Paul, Insight on the Scriptures (1988): Whose name then appears among those
on the twelve foundation stones of the New Jerusalem of Johns visionMatthias or Pauls? (Rev/Ap 21:2,14) ... Gods
original choice, namely Matthias.
Paula Fredriksen, From Jesus to Christ (1988): Scholars, their confusion facilitated by Pauls own apparent
inconsistency,... do not agree even on what Paul said, much less why he said it.
Jostein Gaarder, Sophies World (1991): Was Christ a Christian? That also can certainly be debated.
Gerald Messadi, Saul the Incendiary (Paris 1991): Saul does not really know the teaching of Jesus. In the Epistles
there are no traces of the parables, nor of the expressions and attitudes of Jesus.... The transformation, the essential metanoia
of the believer by ethical meditation, has almost no place in his writings.... Saul quickly arrogates to himself, and it seems
incredible, the privilege of the truth. He, who only glimpsed Jesus, with unparalleled arrogance claims to be the only one who
possesses the truth of the teaching of the Messiahagainst those who, for their part, knew Jesus personally, against the first
disciples. What insolence: he considers Peter a hypocrite!... I asked myself if Saul wouldnt have participated also in the
plot of the Sanhedrin against Jesus.... Before him, there are no Christians, only Jewish disciples of the Jewish Jesus. After
him, Christianity and Judaism will be irreconcilable.... The Epistles make absolutely no mention of the life of Jesus.... It is the
ethical teaching of Saul himself which dominates, as if to replace that of Jesus in Jesus own name.... [He] does not mention a
single miracle of Jesus.... From a strictly Scriptural point of view, the teaching of Saul diverges, in many fundamental points,
from that transmitted by the direct witnesses of Jesus.
Jon Sobrino, Jesus Christ Liberator (1991): Pauls ... Christology is centered on the resurrected Lord, and he does not
make a detailed theological appraisal of the life of Jesus.
Stephen Mitchell, The Gospel according to Jesus (1991): Paul of Tarsus ... [was] the most misleading of the earliest
Christian writers,... [and] a particularly difficult character: arrogant, self-righteous, filled with murderous hatred of his
opponents, terrified of God, oppressed by what he felt as the burden of the [Mosaic] Law, overwhelmed by his sense of sin....
He didnt understand Jesus at all. He wasnt even interested in Jesus; just in his own idea of the Christ.
Paulo Suess, Acculturation, in Ignacio Ellacura & Jon Sobrino (eds.), Mysterium Liberationis (1991): The allegorical
exegesis of Philo (13 BC-45/50 AD), Jewish philosopher and theologian, is present in the writings of Paul,... [who] was in
many respects a figure atypical of the primitive Church,... due to the transition from an agrarian contextvery much present
in the parablesto an urban world ... of the great cities.
Shlomo Riskin, The Jerusalem Post International Edition (28 March 1992): Saul of Tarsus ... broke from Jewish Law,
and the religion thereby created was soon encrusted with pagan elements.
Holger Kersten & Elmar Gruber, The Jesus Conspiracy (1992): Paul makes the whole purpose of Jesus activity rest
exclusively in this dying on the Cross. Here he has little interest in the words and teachings of Jesus, but he makes everything
depend on his own teaching: the salvation from sins by the vicarious sacrificial death of Jesus. Does it not seem most strange
that Jesus himself did not give the slightest hint that he intended to save the entire faithful section of humanity by his death?...
Although there are several most delightful passages in the texts of Paul, Christianity has his narrow-minded fanaticism to
thank for numerous detrimental developments, which are diametrically opposed to the spirit of Jesus: the intolerance towards
those of different views, the marked hostility to the body and the consequently low view of woman, and especially the fatally
flawed attitude towards Nature.... He turns Jesus teaching of Salvation upside down, and opposes his reforming ideas;
instead of the original joyous tidings, the Pauline message of threats was developed.
Dennis J. Trisker & Vera V. Martnez T., They Also Believe (1992): While many persons believe that Christianity
was founded by Jesus Christ,... it is due to Paul that there exists the organization called Christian.... In the New Testament,
we can see how Paul ... was in disagreement with the church in Jerusalem and even held in suspicion by them.... He did not

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emphasize the Jewish aspect of the teaching, and this brought about the first separation within the church. Across the years
this separation widened, making the church more pagan and less Jewish.... Paul was no Apostle.
Xavier Zubiri, The Philosophical Problem of the History of Religions (1993): There is absolutely no doubt that much
of St. Pauls terminology derives from the Mystery Religions.
Bart D. Ehrman, The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture (1993): Whether seen from a social or a theological point of
view,... Christianity in the early centuries was a remarkably diversified phenomenon.... Matthew and Paul are both in the
canon.... Many of Pauls opponents were clearly Jewish Christians ... [who] accepted the binding authority of the Old
Testament (and therefore the continuing validity of the [Mosaic] Law) but rejected the authority of the apostate Apostle, Paul.
|| The New Testament (video course, The Teaching Company, 2000): What did the historical Jesus teach in comparison with
what the historical Paul taught?... Jesus taught that to escape judgment a person must keep the central teachings of the Jewish
Law as he, Jesus himself, interpreted them. Paul, interestingly enough, never mentions Jesus interpretation of the [Mosaic]
Law, and Paul was quite insistent that keeping the Law would never bring Salvation. The only way to be saved, for Paul, was
to trust Jesus death and resurrection.... Paul transformed the religion of Jesus into a religion about Jesus.
Elsa Tamez, Womens Rereading of the Bible, in Ursula King (ed.), Feminist Theology from the Third World (1993):
[There are] contradictions in some of St Pauls writings, which eventually were used to promote the submission of women....
St Paul called for women to keep silent in church.... When a woman becomes dangerously active or threatening to those in
powerful positions, aid is found in the classic Pauline texts to demand womens submission to men. It is in moments like
these that some women do not know how to respond.
Raymond E. Brown, The Birth of the Messiah (Supplement 1993): [Regarding] Pauls statement that Jesus was
descended from David according to the flesh (Rom 1:3),... one may ask whether the evangelists who wrote of the virgin
conception would have chosen such phrasing. || The Death of the Messiah (1994): Paul ... does not quote Jesus or cite his
individual deeds. || An Introduction to the New Testament (1997): One might reflect on what we would know about Jesus if
we had just the letters of Paul. We would have a magnificent theology about what God has done in Christ, but Jesus would be
left almost without a face.... I have not come to abolish the [Mosaic] Law (Matt 5:17); You are not under the Law (Rom
6:14).... Luke is particularly insistent on the reality of Jesus [post-resurrection] appearance, for Jesus eats food and affirms
that he has flesh and bones. In his references to a risen body, Paul speaks of one that is spiritual and not flesh and blood (I-
Cor 15:44,50).... Paul had begun a process whereby Christianity would become almost entirely a Gentile religion.... Far from
being grafted on the tree of Israel, the Gentile Christians will become the tree.... Was it proper for a Christian apostle to
indulge in gutter crudity by wishing that in the circumcision advocated by the [Jewish-Christian] preachers the knife might
slip and lop off the male organ (Gal 5:12)? What entitled Paul to deprecate as so-called pillars of the church members of the
Twelve who had walked with Jesus and the one [James] honored as the brother of the Lord (Gal 2:9)?
John Dominic Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography (1994): As far as Luke who wrote the Acts of the Apostles
is concerned, Paul was not one of the Twelve Apostles and could never have been one since he had not been with Jesus from
the beginning. For Luke, there are only Twelve Apostles and, even with Judas [Iscariot] gone, it is not Paul [but rather
Matthias] who replaces him. || Peter and Paul and the Christian Revolution, PBS documentary (April 2003): What is at
stake in this is, if were going to have a Gentile Christian community and a Jewish Christian community, are we going to
have two Churches or one? If were going to have one, how is it to be integrated together? Thats what is at stake in this: how
is the Church, with these two wings, these two divisions as it were, how is it to remain one Church? Is it going to remain one
Church?
Ian Wilson, Jesus: The Evidence (1996): [The] interest [in Pauls letters] lies in their apparent ignorance of any details
of Jesus earthly life.... [Paul] reflected the attitudes of contemporary society towards women rather than what we may now
believe to have been Jesus own ideas.... We seem to be faced with a straight, first-century clash of theologies: Pauls on the
one hand, based on his other-worldly [Damascus Road] experience; and James [in his epistle], based on his fraternal
knowledge of the human Jesus. And, despite the authority which should be due to the latter, it would seem to be Pauls that
has been allowed to come down to us.... Particularly significant is [James] gentle but firm stance on the importance of Jesus
teaching on communal living.
Alan F. Segal (for Eugene Schwartz), Electronic Echoes: Using Computer Concordances for Bible Study, Biblical
Archaeology Review (Nov/Dec 1997): We can easily quantify allusions by measuring whether a passage in one Biblical work
merely repeats a few words of another or whether it directly quotes several words running.... The results of our research
seemed to confirm ... very few clear parallels between Paul and the Gospels.... [They] almost always express [even] the same
ideas in completely different words.... I am unconvinced by the myriad rather weak parallels between the Gospels and Paul.
Rather,... the [computer] word study seems to show that the two are definitely unrelated.
Stephen J. Patterson, Understanding the Gospel of Thomas Today, in Stephen J. Patterson, James M. Robinson &
Hans-Gebhard Bethge, The Fifth Gospel (1998): The so-called Apostles Creed that emerged only in the second century [is]
completely lacking in sayings of Jesus and focused only on his birth and death.
L. Michael White, Pauls Mission and Letters, From Jesus to Christ: The First Christians, PBS Frontline
Documentary (April 6-7, 1998): We ha[ve] the story of Pauls life in a complete narrative fashion given to us in the Book of
Acts, which details his activities from the time that he was in Jerusalem to the time that he goes to Damascus. There [he] has
a conversion experience and afterward comes back to Jerusalem. He then moves on to Antioch.... Alongside of our account of

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Pauls life that we get from the Book of Acts, we also have an account that Paul himself gives us, and its very important to
notice that in some ways these two accounts contradict one another.... For example in Galatians, when Paul tells us about his
early career, he explicitly says he has little or nothing to do with Jerusalem early on.
John Kaltner, Ishmael Instructs IsaacAn Introduction to the Quran for Bible Readers (1999): Jesus acknowledges
the authority of the Law of Moses while ... Paul argues that Jesus death and resurrection has rendered the Law totally
obsolete for the Christian.
Anthony Saldarini, Jewish Reform Movements: Qumran and the Gospel of Matthew (Biblical Archaeology Society
video lecture, 1999): Jesus wasnt a Christian.... Jesus was a Jew.... To be a follower of Jesus, you dont have to leave
Judaism and become a Christian. To be a follower of Jesus, you have to live Jewish life the way that Jesus taught people to
live Jewish life.... Paul says that theres the Gospel and theres the [Mosaic] Law; thats Pauls polemic, thats somewhere
else.
Edgar Lawrence Doctorow, City of God (2000): I will say here of Jesus, that Jew, and the system in his name, what a
monstrous trick history has played on him.... Christianity was originally a Jewish sect. Everybody knows that.... Paulyou
know, Paul. Fellow had that stroke on the road to Damascus?.... Then what? In this case, a new religion.
Daniel Boyarin, The Gospel of the Memra, Harvard Theological Review (2001): For [the Gospel of] John,... Jesus
comes to fulfill the mission of Moses, not to displace it. The Torah simply needed a better exegete, the Logos Ensarkos, a
fitting teacher for flesh and blood. Rather than supersession in the explicitly temporal sense within which Paul inscribes it,
Johns typology of Torah and Logos Incarnate is more easily read within the context of ... a prevailing assumption of Western
thought, that oral teaching is more authentic and transparent than written texts.
Mark D. Given, The True Rhetoric of Romans (paper, Society of Biblical Literature annual meetings, 2001):
Concerning the sophistic obscurity of Pauls argumentative strategies in Romans,... it is sometimes so hard to tell just what
Paul really intends to say about such controversial subjects as the [Mosaic] Law, Judaism, and the Jewish people that one
might ... suggest that the ambiguities are intended to keep the audience guessing what Paul really thinks.
John R. Donahue, Guidelines for Reading and Interpretation, The New Interpreters Study Bible (2003): The spec-
trum of liberation concerns ... [arises from] the dilemma proposed by biblical injunctions so opposed to these [modern] ideals
(e.g., slaves obey your masters [Eph 6:5, Col 3:22, Tit 2:9]; women be submissive to your husbands [Eph 5:22, Tit 2:4-5]).
Tom Powers, The Call of God: Women Doing Theology in Peru (2003): Women are confronted with such biblical
passages as 1 Cor. 14:34 ... and 1 Tim. 2:11-14.... However, womens voices will never be muted again.
Thomas R. Melville, Through a Glass Darkly: The U.S. Holocaust in Central America (2005): During [Diego]
Casariegos reign [as Cardinal of Guatemala City], government forces had killed thirteen priests and one nun ... [and also]
murdered thousands of catechists and leaders and tens of thousands of laity. All this was done without a word of protest from
the cardinal, in exchange for the pomp and circumstance supplied to the prelate by one illegitimate administration after
another.... High-ranking military officers, large land-owners, and wealthy business leaders continued to use the prelates
name to buttress their concepts of a Christian social order: Slaves, be subject to your masters [Eph 6:5, Col 3:22].
Ioannis Zizioulas (Orthodox Archbishop of Pergamum, President of the Combined International Commission for
Theological Dialogue between Catholics and Orthodox), LOsservatore Romano (7 July 2006): St Peter and St Paul could
have differing points of view about certain questions, as is evident in the Biblical account of their lives.
John Barton, Strategies for Reading Scripture, The Harper Collins Study Bible (2006): [There is an] apparent discord
between Paul and James over the question of works. On the face of it, Paul denies that human beings are made righteous by
good works, whereas James affirms that good works are essentialindeed, that faith apart from good works is empty and
false.... A critical reading of Paul and James might result in the conclusion that they really are incompatible, which would
have considerable consequences for claims about the inspiration and authority of scripture.
Hershel Shanks, The Dead Sea ScrollsWhat They Really Say (Biblical Archaeology Society ebook, 2007): Paul ...
knows nothing of the virgin birth. In Paul, Jesus becomes the son of God at his resurrection. Read Pauls letter to the
Romans, where Jesus was declared to be the son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by his resurrection
from the dead (Romans 1:3-4).
Joseph Ratzinger (Benedict XVI), Jesus of Nazareth (2007): Till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot
will pass from the Law until all is accomplished (Mt 5:18) only appears to contradict the teaching of Saint Paul [in Rom
7:6].... Jesus has no intention of abrogating the Ten Commandments.... The commission given to Peter is actually fundamen-
tally different from the commission given to Paul.
Kathy Ehrensperger, Embodied Theology: Vulnerability and Limitation in Pauls Perception of Leadership, paper
for the Society of Biblical Literature Meetings (2008): Paul in the challenge to his role as an apostle which permeates much
of 2 Corinthians seems to defend himself at a very personal level, thereby giving the impression of reacting out of a sense of
personal offense.... Although the issue at stake in 2 Cor is the acceptance of Paul as an apostle, the issue is not so much
personal as theological.
David C. Sim, Matthew, Paul and the origin and nature of the gentile mission: The great commission in Matthew
28:16-20 as an anti-Pauline tradition, Hervormde Teologiese Studies (2008): The Great Commission at the conclusion of
Matthews Gospel is one of its key texts. In this tradition the risen Christ overturns the previous restriction of the mission to
Israel alone, and demands that the disciples evangelize all the nations. The gospel they were to proclaim included observance

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of the Torah by Jew and Gentile alike. Matthews account of the origin and nature of the Gentile mission differs from Pauls
view as it is found in the epistle to the Galatians. Paul maintains that he had been commissioned by the resurrected Lord to
evangelize the Gentiles, and that the gospel he was to preach did not involve obedience to the Torah.

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